Suddenly Earthstuck
by Tavychu
Summary: What would happen if the trolls were summoned from Alternia to live in earth? And then what would happen if they became human in the process? See how the trolls cope in a completely different culture, and how the four kids decide they are going to deal with these newcomers. A comical homestuck fanfiction.
1. Episode 1: Her the Witch of Space

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 1

HER THE WITCH OF SPACE

Every evening after school, four friends would contact each other through whatever they had available. They called themselves "The Travelers", and had very different personalities corresponding to their individual group nicknames. Their true names however were John Egbert, Jade Harley, Rose Lalonde, and Dave Strider.

Anyhow, John, who had been very much into horrible movies, was now contacting Jade on his ghost buster, sticker infested laptop computer. She was describing this new "incredible spell program" that she discovered not too long ago. See, this was the stuff they liked to talk about in their travelers group. It involved time travel, computer games, or whatever the crap they felt like talking about. Mainly though, it was about the paranormal. This meant ghosts, aliens, big foot, you name it.

"we have to check this out John! i really think that it'll work!" Jade's uncapitalized text popped up into John's pester chum as though she had been typing incredibly fast.

"are you serious?" Replied the messy haired male teen. "what's it suppose to do anyway?"

"i'm not exactly sure really..." Typed Jade. "...something to do with summoning outer dimensional aliens im guessing"

"oh sweet! do rose and dave know about this?"

"no, i haven't told them yet. to be honest, im not really even sure if they would believe me on the subject. you know, considering all my other attempts at magic and programming stuff sort of kind of failed horrifically"

"oh yeah, i'll never forget the time you accidentally drowned that one fish trying to make it into a frog. how do you even manage that? aren't fish suppose to know how to swim?"

"um...i don't want to talk about it... On the other side of the computer Jade was scratching her head in a way that expressed embarrassment. "but anyway, im at least 90 percent positive that this one is going to work this time!"

"ok. good luck then."

"awww...you're lacking in enthusiasm john! could you please note the others and tell them about my discovery? im a bit too nervous to do it myself"

"no. i think that you should do it jade, considering you are the one who found this spell thing in the first place. why do you need everyone to know about it anyway?"

"because i can't do it otherwise!"

"ok"

"and anyway, this seems like it would be so cool if it actually worked the way i want it to! wouldn't you just love to be the first in the world to discover a new possible alien species? think about it john! you would be just like one of your heroes in those movies you watch! i can't really name one off the bat, but you know what im talking about right?"

"ok, ok! calm down, i get the picture. i guess that would be kind of cool if we actually did it."

"yay! :D"

"but again, if you want rose and dave to be involved in this, you're going to have to tell them yourself."

"oh ok..."

"well, i have to clean up the kitchen or dad is gonna have a cow. talk to you later jade!"

"alright john! see ya tomorrow in school!"

This was their usual conversation. Most of the time Jade would get overly excited about something, and poor john would have to cope with it. He didn't mind it too much though, considering he was use to her antics. But man would it be awesome of all of this stuff actually worked! They would be able to do so much together! He started to think about it for a moment while doing the dishes.

Rose finally finished fixing her connection problems when she got Jade's message. The girl seemed to be pestering her for a good five minutes now in excitement.

"Hello Jade." Lalonde finally replied.

"oh good! you have connection now!" Jade said happily.

"Yes. It took a while, but I believe I have a good stable connection. At least until the power goes out again."

"you're having power problems again?"

"Unfortunately yes."

"too bad...well, i better tell you this quickly then. i found this really awesome programming thing that may help us summon...wait for it...aliens from another dimension!"

"Oh? Believe me Jade, I am absolutely jumping for joy at this incredible discovery."

"wait, was that sarcasm? never mind. my point is, the only way i can actually have this thing to work is if i have three other people to do it with me, and you're one of the candidates!"

"Am I?"

"well yeah! if you want to of course. i wouldn't want to force you into doing something you don't want to do."

"Well, alright. I suppose I can put in some effort. So how does it work?"

"ill explain that to everyone as a group once i get dave to join us. we can do it at my house tomorrow if plans succeed!"

"Alright. Keep me in the know Jade. You may tell me the results of this hopeful Dave recruiting in school tomorrow."

"will do! :D talk to you later rose."

Jade got off happily. Two down, one more to go. And he may be the least willing to cooperate: Dave Strider. He liked to keep things cool. No worries. Simply record scratching and dj remixing all day long. Nothing but chill to strike his face, because extreme emotions were so in the category of "uncool". Not to mention that he seemed to be the most skeptical of the group. Jade figured he joined them simply because he had nothing better to do, and you wouldn't catch her complaining. Actually, she had somewhat of a crush on the guy, ever sense he moved in from Texas actually. He had a wicked accent!

"Ok..." She said to herself before even typing a word. "Here goes! Now to chat with Mr. Cool!" She began typing.

"hey dave! :D" A few minutes later, Dave replied.

"jade, sup?"

"i have a question for you!"

"oh yeah?"

"yup!"

"and that is?"

"well...what if i told you that i found a way to...now don't judge me when i say this, 'summon an outer dimensional race of species that could possibly be the opening of some sort of brilliant scientifical discovery?"

"i would say that thats pretty fucking crazy, but hey, if it works, go for it"

"really? well what if i told you this, the only way i can actually get this thing to work out is if i have three other people helping me on it"

"oh?"

"yeah, and, i already have john and rose agreeing to it! it's just that, now all i need is one more person..."

"and i was the only one left you could think of, right?"

"exactly! so...will you do it? pretty pretty please?"

"i dunno jade, this sounds pretty out there"

"come on dave! for me?"

"i'll think about it i guess"

"yay! :D"

"dont get your hopes up too high though, ive got a lot of shit to do for bro tonight, and if i dont get it done today, i wont be able to do anything tomorrow after school"

"oh"

"im guessing you wanted me to join you guys at your place around that time huh?"

"yeah, sort of"

"ill see what i can do, but again, no promises"

"ok"

Jade was slightly disapointed after getting off the computer with Dave because of his indefinate answer, but that wouldn't stop her from suggesting that they do it another time if all else fails. She was quite determined to succeed! So the next day when everyone entered the school building, she was excited to see all of her friends in school. Currently, John was putting away his books.

"Hey John!" Jade popped out from behind the boy's open locker door. It was covered in stickers of Nick Cage and other unique movie stars. Out of surprise, John dropped his notebooks.

"GAH! Jade! You scared the crap out of me!" He stammered.

"Sorry John!" The messy haired girl apologized while helping him pick up all of his scattered papers. "I guess I just got excited!" She handed the worksheets to him.

"It's fine." The boy replied. "So what's up? Did you tell the others about your little project?"

"Yup yup!" Jade smiled.

"And?"

"Rose said that she'd be ok with joining us! But Dave has yet to give me a solid response. He did however say that he would see what he can do! I guess it all depends on if he got his chores done or not...whatever those are. You'd think a guy as cool as him wouldn't have to do things like that!"

"Uh huh." John seemed very much distracted in putting away his things. The bell rung.

"Oh boy! Ok, Dave is in my fist class, so I should be able to tell you what he says by second period, ok?" The girl grinned.

"Righto." John replied with a nod.

Jade's first class would be biology. It was only one of her favorite classes because of the plant and animal science involved, and boy did she love both! She even had her own garden set up at home. Dave was suppose to sit at the desk in front of her, but he didn't seem to be there just yet. This got the girl a little bit worried, that is until right at the last second he came in with a mess of hair and sat down. Morning did NOT agree with him, and that was obvious, because right when he got to his seat, his blonde head fell down over his arms as though the desk was some sort of pillow. Jade tapped the back of his shoulder, and he just groaned.

"Do you have an answer yet?" She whispered while the teacher was setting up the class's assignments.

"Merf..." Was all the boy's reply.

"Oh...well...that's ok, you can tell me when you wake up!"

"How are you so awaaaaaaaaake...?" Dave groaned, momentarily lifting up his head to speak, only to slump it back down again over his arms. Jade only giggled.

Biology seemed to take forever. Jade was actually starting to fall asleep herself this time, until finally, the bell sounded off yet a second time and the girl's head popped up quickly with a piece of paper stuck just above her eyebrows. It drifted off slowly, revealing her excited catlike expression. Dave put his hand on her desk and rolled his eyes, but smiled some.

"Well, I'm able to come over." He said finally. Jade nearly jumped right out of her seat and pumped her arm downward.

"YES!" She exclaimed happily.

"Yeah...actually I'm kind of glad about it. I almost didn't make it last night." He said while turning around and stretching his arms out towards the ceiling.

"Really? How come?" Jade asked while collecting her things. Dave paused immediately.

"Four words..." His eyes narrowed. "Smuppets...LOTS of them..." And with that, he walked out of the classroom, still shivering from his apparent previous excursion. Jade just smiled.

During lunch, the four friends got together to talk things over.

"So that's the plan, ok guys? We'll all meet up in my greenhouse and get this program installed. It should be pretty easy according to the manual, and if it fails, we can just hang out for a while. How's that?" Jade explained happily.

"Sounds good to me!" John said while putting his hand in the middle of the table. Rose and Dave just looked at him funny. "What! This is just like-"

"One of your lame movies right?" Dave interrupted.

"Hey, my movies aren't lame!" Egbert pouted.

"Yeah yeah..." Replied the blonde.

"Well, we can always humor him I suppose." Rose shrugged.

"Boo yeah!" John exclaimed. Again he put his hand in the middle of the lunch table, followed by Rose, then Jade, then a reluctant Dave.

"3, 2, 1 GHOST BUSTERS UNITE!" John had officially herped the derp, and Dave face palmed.

"Awesome! Tonight, my house, four o'clock sharp!" Smiled Jade.

It wasn't too long before the hour of four arrived at Jade's house. Everyone showed up, just as planned, and Jade got out her laptop and readied the program. The first thing the group noticed whenever the item was installed, was a list to type in four individual names with titles above each of them. One of which said "leader".

"Um...which one of us would be considered a leader?" Jade asked the others.

"This was your idea Jade, so it seems as though it would only be fair if you signed under that title." Rose explained.

"Oh no! I couldn't do that! I would make an awful leader! Besides, what if the aliens show up at my house or something? I would hate that! Maybe you would be better at it Rose."

"I say no. But that's only because knowing my mother, she would attempt having a party with the creatures. If it works of course." Replied the blonde female. "What about you Dave?"

"Nah man, my bro would hate that! He has to fight out enough bull with his shitty swords as it is. Besides, what am I gonna do with a bunch of aliens?"

"Have rap offs perhaps?" Suggested Lalonde.

"Still a no go Rose. Bro's smuppets are enough of a hassle."

"Guess that only leaves us one choice then!" Jade smiled and turned her head to look at John who was currently distracted by a floating spec of dust.

"Oh, what, huh?" Egbert snapped out of it.

"Leader?" Harley smiled. Her eyebrows were lifting up and down as though trying to tempt him to say yes.

"Me? You can't be serious!"

"Oh we are John." Rose chimed in.

"Yeah man, you're into all that alien shit right? You could be another men in black or somethin." Dave said.

"Well I-"

"Gettin' them aliens like no tomorrow..."

"Er-"

"Being digested by giant ass cockroaches..."

"Duh-"

"Transformulating into alien dung..."

"WILL YOU LET ME SPEAK DAVE?"

"Sure man, I was wondering why you were taking so long to say anything."

John face palmed.

"What I was trying to say, was that I'm not to sure that it should be me as the leader. Do leaders have any huge qualifications or something Jade?"

"It doesn't really say." She replied. "But I'm sure you would be great at it!"

"Yeah, you could be the A Team of alien whoop ass!" Dave interrupted.

"I can understand you without all those movie jokes, you know that right?" John sighed.

"I know. It's just fun as fuck messing with you."

"Sigh...I guess I'll do it then." Egbert said.

"Yay!" Jade handed him the digital pen for him to sign in the leader position. After he had signed it, words formulated underneath the word "leader" as some kind of subtitle. It wrote, "The Heir of Breath".

"Well that was kind of cool." He said, a little bit more optimistically about it this time.

"Alright John, hand me the pen and I'll sign next." Jade said with a smile. He did so, and she wrote her name on the next line down. Her title formulated into the words "The Witch of Space". After her, Rose signed and became "The Seer of Light". Whereas Dave became "The Night of Time".

"Alright, so we have wicked nicknames. That's cool. Now what?" The blonde boy asked coolly.

"Now we press enter!" Jade answered. She then took the pen, and pressed the last button titled, "**SUMMON**" in all bold print.

The light in the greenhouse started to flicker rapidly, until it finally decided to completely shut off. Then from the computer screen, there projected a large realistic map of many, many galaxies replacing the glass rooftop above them. Everyone's eyes dilated at the sight of the stars rotating about the room in slow motion. The rush of it all was so fantastical even, that everybody's hair started to wave around like a heavy breeze was embracing each of them.

_"Select your Galaxy" _

The computer spoke to them in a low and female digital voice. Meanwhile a vivid list of names appeared before them in green projection.

"Um..." Jade stammered.

_"Galaxies starting in 'U.M.' shall be searched immediately. Processing now."_

A loading circle design projected itself at 45 percent, then quickly filled to a full logo.

_"Category U.M loaded in 5.2 seconds. Planets found: 1. Select this planet?" _

Jade looked at the others with a dumbfounded expression on her face for their approval. John was distracted by the lights and said nothing, and Dave shrugged. Rose put her hand on Jade's shoulder and nodded. She seemed very intrigued now. Jade then turned back to face the screen of lights and said with slight hesitance, "Yes".

_"Planet of Alternia selected. Please wait." _

Just then, a multitude of stars collided together to make a zodiacal circle. Each lit up like a flame, until finally, the entire projection shut off, and all was quiet.

After about a minute of silence, someone finally spoke up.

"Um...did it work?" John asked, frozen in the darkness.

"I dunno man..." Dave replied while adjusting his sun specs in awe.

"Astonishing..." Rose joined in utter amazement.

"That...was...SO COOL!" Jade squealed. Her hair was even messier than before and her glasses were quite crooked. She turned to face the others behind her. "We have to see if it worked!"

"And how do you suppose we go about that Jade?" Lalonde asked.

"Well...we can maybe start by looking outside for anything out of the ordinary?"

"Sounds cool to me bra." Dave intervened.

"Yeah, let's do it." John agreed.

"Alrighty!" Jade smiled then got up quickly. "To the outside!"

When they got out front, there was nothing incredibly notable. It was just a quiet evening. A gentle breeze was strolling across the grass. Jade scratched her head.

"I guess it didn't work then?" She said with a more questioning tone than a disappointed one.

"It could have..." Rose replied.

"Yeah. For all we know we could have summoned a bunch of aliens to land in...I dunno, Spain or somethin'." Said Dave.

"Why does it have to be Spain?" John questioned.

"I dunno. It was the first thing that popped into my head?"

"I see..."

"Yup..."

There was another long drawn out silence.

"So...wanna snack on popcorn or something guys? Watch a movie?" Dave finally suggested.

"Sigh...I guess so." Jade let out her disappointment with a low exhale.

"Sorry it didn't turn out the way you wanted it Jade." Strider apologized. Jade simply shrugged it off as they began to go back inside.

"That's ok. Maybe next time." The door closed behind them, and an odd falling star flickered out of sight in the sky.


	2. Episode 2: Those the Aliens

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 2

THOSE THE ALIENS

A very groggy boy opened his eyes to see that he wasn't where he had been before. Last he checked actually, he was snug and warm at the laboratory sleeping the night away. It was his first good sleep in months. But what appeared before him now, wasn't the lab at all, but this strange old abandoned house with a caved in roof. He grunted somewhat when turning to his side. Maybe this was some sort of stupid dream that he wasn't waking up from just yet. He thought this, at least until he fell off of whatever it was he was sleeping on. (That being a computer table.) It was then that he realized that he really WAS in the lab, only the roof had caved in from some kind of crash! The boy skittered to his feet in utter surprise and looked around. Computers and other technological equipment were completely entangled all over the room while sparking up in a mess of wires and electricity. Otherwise, there was dead silence.

"Is anyone alive?" He asked with a loud and somewhat raspy adolescent voice. He dusted off his shirt, and there was no answer. "Damn...I feel fucking weird." He said before a brief sneeze. The entire atmosphere was filled with a collection of dirt clouds and electric smoke, so it was no surprise that his nose was feeling quite ticklish. Then when the dust cleared, he realized the cause of that weirdness. Standing in front of him was his own reflection, a reflection that made him jump up and trip over backwards into the near by table. The nubby horns that he was so use to being there were gone! Along with his gray skin and yellow eyes! He looked down at his hands to verify if what he was seeing was true. It WAS...the troll known as Karkat Vantas had become something he had despised for ages: a human boy!

"Holy SHIT!" He screamed loudly. The room echoed, and it was then that he heard some of the rubble start to move around. Out from a pile of rocks came one of his accompaniments. A taller male with thick framed glasses, and purple streaked black hair: Eridan Ampora, also suddenly human.

"What the bloody glub just happened?" He said with his hand pressed against his forehead due to an apparent headache.

"Fuck if I know!" Another voice came from a rubble covered part of the lab, this one with a hint of a lisp. It was yet another individual with neatly trimmed hair and multi colored 3D looking sunglasses. He was tangled up in a multitude of computer wire, nearly tied to the wall because of it. He did however manage to pull free.

Eventually a whole dozen different individuals managed to make their way out of different fixed places in the lab. None of which seemed very injured. All however, were very confused. The first female to speak had a rather light and adorable voice.

"Hehe! Equius! You look funny!" A girl named Nepeta Leigon giggled at her taller friend who was helping her stabilize herself from the mess of dirt she had been sitting in only seconds before.

"You also look...different...Nepeta..." He replied with a heavy breath in between his words. While the girl wore an adorably knitted cat hat, her male friend only had sweaty jet black hair subtly falling over his shoulders. Both appeared to be quite human.

"Uh, guys...I-I can't feel my legs..." Another voice echoed from what seemed to be the ceiling of the laboratory, and it was. The owner of the voice had a dark brown fuzzy Mohawk and was dangling there by just a few computer chords tangled around his slowly detaching robotic ankle.

"Silly Tavros! You don't have legs remember? I took them from you!" Laughed a female voice from below. She had a long mess of dark locks that had started to tangle because of the impact of whatever the hell happened to the laboratory in the first place.

"Oh...uh, r-right..." Stuttered the boy who was very much upside down.

"By the way, you look even more like a weaky weakling without those horns there to heavy down your head. It's even more pathetic than before!" The girl taunted.

"Woah! Wait, what?" Tavros pressed his hands against the sides of his head to make sure she wasn't just joking, but in doing so, the chords holding him up started to tear and he fell on his face. His robotic legs were now ruined.  
The girl laughed. She went by the name of "Vriska Serket".

"Oh dear..." Yet another voice was heard, this one smooth and female. She was Kanaya Maryam. "...And Equius worked so hard on those too."

"How did this happen?" Feferi, a girl with extremely long hair and a decorative outfit asked from her special spot in the lab. She appeared to be quite dizzy.

"I'm not quite sure. All I know is that I had nothing to do with it..." A fifth female with flowing red brown hair said while dusting off her clothing. She was Aradia Megido.

A blind girl cackled happily and removed her glasses to clean them, momentarily revealing her completely red eyes.

"Well I don't know about you guys, but I thought it was a blast!" She laughed with a somewhat raspy voice.

"Will all of you just shut up for a moment so that I can see exactly what happened to us and where we are!" Karkat shouted. He appeared to be having trouble finding a working computer that may be of use to them.

From a pile of horns emerged a slowly registering Gamzee Makara. He had ultra dark brown and messy hair with a face covered in carefully painted clown make up. He was slowly removing the horns from burying his upper body when everyone else started with their own talkative mayhem.

"Honk" Was the only "phrase" that he uttered.

"Here KK, let me do it. I know more about computerth than you do." Suggested Sollux Captor. He was the one who replied so rudely to Eridan only minutes before.

"Guh! Fine! Just figure out where the fuck we landed for me ok?" Karkat grumbled back loudly.

"Got it...I jutht have to connect a few wireth and we'll have a thignal in no time."

"Good." The angry boy replied with crossed arms. He was known for having a negative and angsty additude towards well, pretty much everything. "Is this going to take long?" He grumbled.

"KK, I'm only going to work thlower if you keep pethtering me about it. Give me a minute." It literally took him a minute to boot up the seemingly broken device. "Oh...well that exthplainth the change in appearanthe. I didn't even know we had thith program."

"What program?" Karkat asked immediately.

"Ith an adaption devithe. Bathically what it doeth ith analithe the thype of creatureth living on whatever planet we may be at the current time. Then from there, it hath the abilatieth to deguithe uth to look like thothe creatureth. It can eathily be dithabled. Thee?" The lisping Sollux pressed a button on the computer, and the entire lab looked as though it was being scanned by a graph like mass of green, and just like that, everybody changed back into their original troll like appearances.

"Oh thank goodness that can be toggled!" Karkat said loudly. He rubbed his horns in relief.

"Yeth, but I thuggetht that if we ever feel like going outthide of the labratory, we should change ourthelveth to look like our previouth human formth. Otherwithe we may cauthe a thort of human riot..."

"Yeah yeah yeah. I'm not stupid. My head was not a crushed item of impact. I'm not mentally unstable! Well, whatever, thanks for changing us back Sollux."

"Thure thing KK, although your latht thatement wath rather quethtionable. Do you know what we're going to do now? I don't think it'th really pothable to go back home at thith point."

"Of course I know what to do!" Karkat thought for a very long moment. "We have to find out how the fuck we got here in the first place for one, then try to fix up the lab! Simple as that!"

"I thee...and how are we going to go about that KK?" Sollux asked. Karkat scratched his head.

"I...don't know yet..." He grunted. "But it'll come to me! What sort of things do humans our age do anyway?"

"Eathily acthethable KK." The lisping teen turn back towards his computer and started to type once more until multiple pictures popped up on the screen. "The humanth theem to attend thith thothal building that goeth by the name of...'high thchool, until they graduate at a thertain education level."

"HIGH THCOOL...what the fuck is HIGH THCOOL?" Karkat responded.

"No KK...high thcool...with an eth."

"Oh fuck you and your screwed up lisping! I demand answers!"

"It'th where adolethant humanth go to in order to learn."

"You mean they have to be educated together? In one FUCKING building?"

"It appearth tho KK."

Karkat face palmed.

"Ugh...how idiotic can one race get! They can't attempt taking over each other's land if they're taught to work together! But wait...if there are a number of different high schools..." He slammed his fist down in his other hand as though he had an idea. "...Then that means the schools can go to war against one another! It's brilliant!"

"Actually KK-"

"Yes! That's what we'll do! We shall disguise ourselves as the nook sucking humans and attend their schools! We shall learn their ways, meanwhile taking over every school on earth! BUAHAHAHA- oh fuck the evil laugh. Let's just do this shit!"

"But what about getting back home?" Sollux asked.

"Oh yeah, we'll do that too...eventually, but first..." He stood on a table to get everyone's attention while also waving his arms about like an awkward chicken. Everyone looked at him. "Everyone! I know you indignant excretion holes are probably wondering where the fuck we are and what just happened. Well, I have yet to really know what just happened myself. The point is, it was just found out where we landed. Earth. I know, it's a fucking shocker. But we're going to have to learn how to adapt until we can get this obliterated abomination of a laboratory fixed up and back into a working status. Does everyone understand?"

Gamzee, who was one of the few not really paying attention, was gnawing on an individual honk horn. Then when he realized Karkat was starring at him, he looked back, and his teeth slowly continued biting down, causing the horn to make a long and drawn out squeaking sound until finally, it stopped.

"Really Makara...?" Karkat sighed.

"Hernk" Gamzee replied with his mouth still full.

"Ugh...well there goes my fuel to the fire. Anyway, we are all going to attend a public education facility the humans call_ high school _until we figure out what else to do about our current predicament. Get it? Got it. Good." After that was said, he slowly climbed down from the table and scratched the back of his head with a slight look of stress in his eyes.

"Nithe thpeach there KK." Sollux complemented.

"Yeah I know, everyone was just _so_ fucking absorbed."

"I'll work on our profileth to get everyone into thothe high thcoolth. We thould all be regithtered by tomorrow if I'm playing my cardth right."

"Good job. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a well deserved nap." Yawned Karkat.

"Weren't you napping before we even got here KK? Actually, I'm pretty thure you thlept through the entire crash."

Karkat frowned.

"SHUDDUP SOLLUX I DO WHAT I WANT!" He said in a slur.

"Riiight..." Twitched the four horned Captor. He then proceeded to work on his computer.

Outside the broken down laboratory, the building appeared to be sitting in the middle of a forest clearing. There was a thick orange yellow sunset behind it that was slowly drawing out into the late evening, and standing in front of it, was a tallish young man wearing a type of baseball cap and holding a long japanese katana in his right hand.

"Well I'll be..." He said with a low Texas accent, then he slowly turned, and walked away.

That night, the same blonde, cap covered male wore an apron and was serving breakfast for dinner to his younger brother Dave Strider.

"Pancakes bro?" The younger blonde asked while looking up from a collection of magazines he was reading.

"Sure are." His brother replied. The man's name was Dirk Strider, and ever sense their parents passed away do to a horrific accident, he was put in charge of the household.

"That's cool." Dave said. He stabbed one of the pancakes with his fork.

"Saw some weird shit today Dave." Said Dirk.

"Oh?"

"Yup. Found this old abandoned warehouse looking thing that I'm pretty sure was never there before."

"Seriously? Where at?"

Dirk sat down to eat.

"In the woods just outside of town." The older brother replied mid chew. He swallowed. "Looked kind of suspicious if you ask me. Anything you know about?"

"Nah. I haven't been in those woods for weeks." Dave replied. "Unless..." He let out a soft chuckle.

"Unless what?" Dirk asked.

"Heh. It's nothing. Just something me and my friends were talking about not too long ago."

"Oh really? What was _that_ about?"

"Just some stupid stuff again. You know, aliens and shit."

"I see."

"Yup."

"Hmm..."

Dave pushed his plate away, full already after his speedy eating style. Even so, it was only half way finished.

"Done already?" His brother asked.

"Yeah, I have some remixing to do." He got up carefully and stretched his arms out while walking away.

"Alright lil brother. Just let me know if you need anything."

"Will do." Dave walked into the hallway not too far from where he had originally been sitting. Dirk waited until his brother was out of site in order to say anything. He then placed his hand on his chin to think.

"Aliens huh...?" A crash was heard in the hallway.

"GODDAMMIT BRO! YOU CAN PUT YOUR CREEPY ASSED SMUPPETS ANYWHERE YOU LIKE, BUT PLEASE STOP PILING THEM UP IN FRONT OF MY DOOR JUST SO THAT THEY CAN FALL ON TOP OF ME LIKE THIS!" Dave screamed. Dirk looked up.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you about that!" He shouted back.

When Dave managed to swim through the pile of smuppets and into his room, he sat down at his computer. The others seemed to be having a group conversation on pester chum. He logged in. Jade was the first to notice him.

"dave! whats up? :D"

"not too much, you"

"We were having a conversation about the other night." Rose typed with perfect sentence format.

"yeah dave, where were you?" John asked.

"i was eating pancakes" The blonde boy replied. "so fill me in"

"well, we didnt get much chatting done" Jade replied. "actually, the farthest we got was the start of a conversation"

"It involved strangely occurring happenstances considering our ordeal." Said Lalonde.

"yeah, what rose said" John joined in.

"thats cool" Dave typed. "so does that mean we found something"

"maybe!" Said Jade happily.

"like what"

"Well, have you noticed that recently many of the astrological constellations have failed to be prompt and noticeable?" Rose asked.

"not really" Replied Dave. "i dont usually pay attention to that stuff"

John began to type.

"well we've been researching, and recently, the past few nights have been pretty clear of any clouds or fog"

"i see"

"so basically what i'm trying to say, is that the stars have disappeared completely!" The messy haired boy explained.

"uh huh" Dave said dryly.

"that doesn't intrigue you at all?" John complained.

"well i guess its kind of impressive"

Jade gasped.

"wow dave! what does it take to impress you?" She said.

"not too much" He paused. "im just not so sure i can accept that as a fact"

"what will it take to get you interested dave?" Commented Egbert.

"i am interested, im just being cool about it, no need to get crazy just yet"

"He does have a point you two." Rose intervened.

"yeah...i guess so :(" Harley frowned. "but you know, if anything weird happens, please tell us! ok dave?"

"well, i guess there _was_ something sort of out of the ordinary my brother told me about during dinner"

":O really?" Jade asked happily.

"yeah, but im not sure if it really connects"

"oh just get to the point dave" John said.

"ok, well my brother said that he was taking a walk like usual in the woods just outside of town, when he saw this big abandoned warehouse that he had never seen before" Strider explained. "i guess its kind of weird because he goes down there all the time and never once saw anything like it in that area of the woods"

"wow!" Grinned jade from her computer.

"yeah, but again, it might not even connect"

"thats still really cool dave! maybe we should go there sometime and examine it!"

"only one problem with that jade" Replied the blonde.

"oh?"

"yeah, the woods are big, and i have no idea where he found it, so the only way we would be able to check it out is if he leads the way"

"oh...:(" Jade frowned again.

"who knows though, we might be able to search around" Dave continued.

"oh! :D"

"P. Q. R. S. T. U. V! we get it, we get it!" John said. Jade simply laughed.

"So if this is going to happen, when, and what time?" Rose, who had been reading the conversation this entire time, asked politely.

"not sure..." Harley sighed.

"tomorrow after school?" Suggested John.

"no go john, i have shit to do" Said Strider.

"I'm busy as well..." Rose joined.

"yeah...i have to get that school project done by friday...so i cant either..." Jade sighed. John looked at his computer in shock.

"am i really the only one who isnt busy all week?" He asked in surprise.

"Apparently so." Rose said calmly.

"aw...that sucks"

"maybe next week we can do it!" Jade commented. "I should be free by then!"

"ok" John replied.

"hehe! next week it is then!" The long haired girl giggled happily.

"Until then I suppose we will simply have to play the waiting game." Lalonde nodded.

"right" Dave agreed. And with that, everyone logged out and continued on with their separate lives.


	3. Episode 3: An Unknown Territory

Suddenly Earthstuck

Episode 3

Hidden Within an Unknown Territory

John sat down in his usual first period class. This was chemistry. All seemed pretty normal, that is until he turned his head and saw that there was a very new student sitting down next to him on his right. The student appeared to be quite confident in their appearance. A large purple scarf wrapped around their neck, and his hair was streaked with purple. He also wore thick glasses, and had an expression of arrogance about him. The stranger turned his head to face John, and John looked back with an odd look in his eyes. The stranger then proceeded to quickly stick out his tongue and face the front of the room once more. Egbert drew back from this, then examined the rest of the room. Behind the boy was yet ANOTHER new student. This one with messy reddish black hair and an angry expression on his face. John was quite confused.

Soon the teacher came in, ready to start off the day. She wore her gray blond hair to her shoulders, and had on tiny glasses. The type of teacher that had a knack for making teenage high schoolers feel younger than they actually were.

"Children" She started with a wavery voice. "Several foreign exchanged students have been welcomed into our school district starting today." She looked around the room. "Karkat, Eridan, would you two like to come up and introduce yourselves to the class please?" The children snickered at their names as the two "foreign exchanged students" walked up to the front. "Go on and start with your full names."

"Thank you miss human superior lady!" Karkat said with crossed arms. "I'm Karkat Vantas, leader of this puny squad of foreign infidels. I expect everyone to treat me with kindness and respect as I squander your classroom for this so called 'knowledge' your adult leaders so speak of. I enjoy romantic movies and giving out orders. Thank you."

"All...right then." The teacher replied awkwardly. "Eridan, go ahead and introduce yourself."

"Land dwwellers! My name is Eridan Ampora, and like Karkat, I expect respect if and wwhen you decide to speak to me! I come from a vvery high class of nobles wwhere I come from, so high in fact that I am practically a prince! Therefore, if you do _not_ treat me wwell, you may have to suffer the consequences." The second "exchanged student" said with an almost snobby accent.

"Let's hope those consequences aren't...life threatening, Mr. Ampora." The teacher said weakly.

"I'm not makin' any promises Miss wwhatevver." Humphed Eridan. And with that, the two went back to their seats.

The stressed out teacher continued on with whatever it was she was trying to teach in the first place. Meanwhile, John turned towards Eridan with a confused look on his face.

"You're really from a noble family?" He whispered, almost intrigued.

"Yes." Eridan whispered back. "Have a problem wwith it? Or are you just questionin' my honesty?"

"Uh...no problem...I thought it was kind of cool I guess." John shrugged.

"Will you two nook suckers stop talking for _one_ moment?" Karkat grumbled from behind the two. "I'm trying to be learned!" He whispered loudly. John twisted his face into one of disgust.

"Sorry..." He replied with a hint of rudeness about him.

The rest of the class went on pretty normally, despite the fact that Karkat much enjoyed throwing little bits of paper that he didn't need at the back of Johns head. Throughout it all though, Egbert was pretty good at ignoring it, no matter how much he wanted to snap out at this "new student".

Finally after a few more strenuous classes, lunch had arrived, and all four friends slumped down at their table.

"So what do you guys think of all those foreign exchanged students invading our school grounds?" Dave asked. He seemed to be the most calm out of all of them. Him and Jade anyway.

John groaned.

"It's awful!" He said in annoyance.

"Simply scandalous..." Rose Joined in.

"That bad eh?" Dave asked before taking a sip of his chocolate milk.

"I dunno, I don't think they're all that bad." Said Jade. "At least from what I saw."

John began to grumble.

"Oh they were." He said with the same low and annoyed vocal structure.

"How?" Jade asked.

"The one wouldn't stop throwing paper wads at me for the entirety of first period class...the teacher was completely oblivious. Not that that's anything new."

"I see..." Replied the girl as she adjusted her glasses. "What about you Rose, what was so bad about them from what you witnessed."

Rose starred down at her lunch food mush and began to play with it using her fork as some sort of prod. She was sitting up straight, but her eyes wouldn't leave the tray.

"Well, in advanced English, I was completely dumbfounded by one of the foreign students whenever they got an A plus on their grammar report. Considering they have just arrived to the school without any knowledge of this test, them actually acing it right away took me by the hair and metaphorically strangled me to death! Not to mention the fact that later in computer concepts, I was once again struck down a level by yet another exchanged student by the name of Sollux Captor! Twice I was told by the teachers that I had competition in each class. Twice I was told I could do better." She explained.

"Oh I get it Rose!" Exclaimed Egbert. "You're just majorly jealous!"

"Unfortunately, yet admittedly so John." She agreed.

"What about you Dave?" The glasses boy asked his friend from across the table. "You don't seem at all bothered by any of this."

"It was cool I guess. Nothin' too bad happened. I had the same class as three of them so far. Two guys and a girl." He looked around, the cupped his hand at the side of his mouth to whisper. "And the chick, totally digs me yo."

"Oh?" Asked John. "Why do you say that?"

"She couldn't keep her hands off me dawg! Even started to sniff my shirt at one point. It was fucking weird. Then the teacher introduced her as Terezi Pyrope and said she was blind. So maybe that's why she was touching me up like that."

"In...teresting..." Egbert replied slowly. "What about the other two, what were they like?"

"The other two? Well, one was a juggalo, and the other was a cripple kid. He had a wheel chair and everything." Dave answered.

"Cripple kid?" Jade asked while her mouth was full of sandwich. She enjoyed bringing her own lunches to school sense she felt that the cafeteria food sucked ass. She swallowed. "He was in one of my classes too! The really shy one right?"

"Yeah. He stuttered a lot." Said Dave.

"Uh huh." Harley agreed.

"Him and his juggalo friend kept on passing notes to each other throughout the entire class. It was kind of ridiculous." Dave continued.

"Hey, isn't that them over there?" John pointed to a table not too far away filled with the new students from wherever it was they had apparently come from.

"Well shit man, you're right." Dave said while leaning back to glance at them.

"It strikes me odd that they can all speak perfect English when they are apparently foreign..." Rose said with a slight huff of air.

"Yeah." John said. "I wonder what they're talking about.

Meanwhile at the other table, Karkat placed down a heavy lunch bag.

"Considering the unfortunate happenstance that the school will not accept boon bucks as their pay, I had to cope with that and bring everyone a lunch myself. You all better be fucking grateful for this! Because until Sollux finds out how we can get our lunches for free, this is what we're going to have to eat." He passed around some food. It included some strange unearthly fruit and a few sandwiches, one of which seemed to be glowing green. Gamzee reached for it with a grin.

"Oh, that one's mine!" He said before taking a large bite out of it. Karkat sighed.

"Of course that one's fucking yours Makara! Nobody else would be stupid enough to put soper slime into their meat wads of a human bread meal!"

"Honk." Gamzee replied.

"Oh never mind!" Continued the extremely angst infected teen. "At least you're fucking grateful."

"Yeah best friend, you are one chillax troll to be settin' this up for us so motherfuckin' kindly." The messy haired clown boy said with a smile.

"Yeah...uh, thanks Karkat, for the meal." Tavros also said. The others simply started to dig in without any real acknowledgement of Karkat's "kindness".

"So did everyone_ learn _anything thus far?" Vantas asked the others. "Not that any of you give a shit about what I'm asking you."

"Me and Equius learned how to make purretty portraits of each other in a class called art!" Nepeta smiled cutely. She held up a picture she drew of Equius smiling.

"Nepeta...I command you...remove that unrealistic grin off my face...I do not smile like that."

"No! It's my picture, and the teacher told me that art is whatever you interpret it to be!" The kitten looking girl said as she clung to her picture protectively. Aradia looked at her with a straight yet curious expression on her face.

"That reminds me, Nepeta, what happened to your hat?" She asked with a silvery female voice.

"Oh yeah...during statistics, the teacher told me that hats aren't aloud in school...so he took it from me..." The smaller girl replied.

"I attempted to stop them, but Nepeta told me to behave myself...and then I started to sweat..." Equius added.

"Ugh...we don't want to hear about your disgusting sweating habits Equius! Just...stop it!" Karkat said.

"My apologies..." The larger male managed to calm himself down after a few wipes of a napkin to his perspiring forehead.

The entire time the others were conversing, Feferi was continuously rocking back and fourth with a twitch in her eye.

"Somethin wrong Fef?" Eridan asked her from her left. She answered with a shake in her voice.

"Health class..." She twitched. "what has been learned...cannot be unlearned..."

"Oh yeah, health." Vriska chuckled. Feferi slowly turned to face her, still shivering in shock.

"How can that not affect you?" She asked.

"Probably because I fell asleep in the middle of it all. I could care less about human reproduction."

"Oh god! Please don't go into detail about that!" Karkat demanded.

"Believe me..." Feferi said. "I won't."

Kanaya politely finished wiping her face with a napkin before speaking her share of the day thus far.

"I received a high letter grade on a grammar report. Not that it comes as any surprise to me." She stated with a calming smile.

"That'th like me." Sollux stated. "Computer contheptth was a breethe. I already knew everything in the clath." He said with his hands neatly placed behind his head in a relaxed position.

"Well of course _you_ did Sollux!" Karkat said with crossed arms.

"What can I thay KK? I'm a computer geniuth."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. I get the fucking point." Huffed Vantas in reply. "Anyway, today after this inferior human schooling session is completed, we shall all report back to the laboratory and rest off the last few hours of the day. Hopefully then we can get our shit organized so that we can maybe get back to our home planet or something. Any questions? No wait, scratch that, no questions asked! I don't have time to answer them all in this little moment that we have together. Besides, I don't know what use it would be in asking questions considering how dumbfounded I am about this situation in the fucking first place!"

"Hey! Maybe those humans over there know how we got here! They've been starring at us this entire time after all!" Nepeta said while pointing happily to the other table. With that the rest of the disguised trolls looked to where she was gesturing, and the humans immediately looked away.

"Hmm..." Karkat said while scratching his chin. He then got up.

"Oh shit! He's coming this way!" John whispered loudly while covering his face with his right hand.

"HUMANS!" Vantas started. He coughed momentarily. "I mean, uh...CITIZENS! Might I ask you why you were starring at our table with such looks of befuddlement?" He tried to be as polite about it as possible.

"WE WEREN'T STARRING!" John yelped.

"Um..." Jade said. "...What John here is trying to say, is that we didn't mean to stare, and we're very sorry."

"You fucking better be!" Karkat replied angrily. Jade drew back from his comment as though out of fear, therefore causing her eyes to glisten with a sad puppy like expression. It actually caused Karkat adjust his collar before blushing some. "Guh! J-Just don't be so rude about us next time." He stammered. "Now get that hideous look off your face! You're making me pity you!"

"Isn't that the point?" Jade squeaked.

"Oh never mind! Just stay out of our business ok?"

"Mkay!" The girl replied with a cute grin. Karkat walked back to his table.

"So what the glub did they want?" Asked Eridan once Karkat sat back down again.

"I don't fucking know. They were just starring to stare I guess!" He replied. From his side, Terezi briefly licked the angry boy's face.

"Karkat~" She said almost tauntingly. She was finally finished being distracted by the red chalk Karkat had snuck into her sandwich. "You taste good! Why is your face so red anyway?"

"M-my face?" The boy quickly cupped his hands over the sides of his cheeks in embarrassment. "Nothing is wrong with my face!"

"You're lying Karkat~" Laughed the blind Pyrope.

"TH-TH-TH-THAT GIRL WAS TRYING TO SWOON ME! I BLAME HER!" His hands wavered about in a spasm, and Terezi just laughed. "STOP LAUGHING AT ONCE!" The boy continued to complain.

"Silly Karkles! You already know that you belong to me!" The girl chuckled. After this was said, Nepeta blushed and looked down at her lap with a hint of sadness in her eyes. The poor girl had always had a crush on Karkat, and knowing that he was happy with someone else made her feel somewhat disappointed. Equius quietly reached over to touch the cat girl's face. The only problem with this was that Equius was so strong, even the lightest of paps could send someone to the hospital in no time.

"OW!" Nepeta sobbed. She put her hand up to her newly bruised face and whimpered. "What was that for?"

"You seemed...sad...Nepeta. I apologize for my apparent...roughness...with you." Equius quietly replied. Nepeta blushed a green tint. That was one thing that was unchangeable when it came to their disguises: their blood color.

"I-it's ok Equius! A-and of course I'm not sad! Hehe, what is there to be sad about?" She tried to sound as innocent as possible, and though there was a hint of suspicion in the strong individual's sun glass covered eyes, he didn't ask any further questions and soon looked away.

After a few more minutes of finishing their meals, the bell rung for their next period classes, and the students rushed about to get there on time.

The day flew by pretty quickly after that, so not very many interesting events occurred during that amount of time. Classes were a breeze for the trolls, even though they asked many odd questions pertaining to the human society throughout the rest of the day. Examples of which were, "What is a government?" or, "What makes the so called 'president' so special?" Weird things like that. At one point in time Karkat had asked the teacher what soccer was, and many of the children in his class laughed at him. At least until the teacher scolded them to stop. Then when he got his answer, he very bluntly called it a ridiculous subject that has absolutely no goal or purpose in existing. His classmates seemed appalled, but he couldn't care less.

Finally, Karkat and the rest of his group were dismissed from what he called, "An awful assed excuse for an education facility if he did ever see one." There wasn't much argument on that statement, and they continued on their way back to the partially destroyed laboratory. But when they got there, they were surprised to find it was surrounded with caution tape and a multitude of uniformed police men...


	4. Episode 4: And Then

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 4

AND THEN...

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?" Karkat screamed when he saw the scene taking place before him. Sollux quickly covered his mouth.

"Shut up KK!" He whispered loudly. "Thothe guyth are called polithe. We have to rethpect them. It'th an Earth thing..."

"Mrph!" Karkat replied. He quickly bit Captor's hand, causing the lisping disguised troll to pull away and swipe his hand about like there was no fucking tomorrow.

"Ow! Shit KK! That really hurt!" He said loudly. He then covered his mouth hoping that the cops wouldn't hear. One of the men in uniform spotted the group of unfamiliar children, and then walked towards them with a look of seriousness about him.

"Oh great, look what you did..." Sollux scolded his shorter Vantas friend.

"Me?" Karkat whispered loudly. "You're the one who was dancing around like an idiot!"

"You fucking bit me!" Sollux loudly whispered back. The officer stopped in front of them.

"You can't hang out around here kids." He said with a low voice of authority. "We're using these findings for scientific research."

"But that's not fair!" Karkat argued. "We're using this building as our headquarters!"

"Sorry kids, but it's dangerous to play your little clubhouse games at a site like this." The police man said.

"Clubhouse games? What clubhouse games? I'm being completely serious here!" Said Vantas with a shrill coldness in his tone.

"This building wasn't here before." Explained the man. "Therefore we have to examine it of anything out of the ordinary."

"Excuse me..." Another man's voice came out from around the building, then when he came from the shadows, he could be seen as in fact, Dirk Strider. The officer turned to face him.

"Yes? What is it?" He asked politely.

"Well, wouldn't you say that it's completely normal for children of their age to be curious about something like this?" The older Strider brother asked with one hand behind his back.

"I suppose so..." The police man replied.

"Then how's about you get some more kindness about you. They aren't causing any trouble. Besides, shouldn't you be searching the inside of the building with the rest of the workers?"

"Oh damn it! Thank you Strider..." And with that, the officer ran up towards the building and joined his fellow police crew. Dirk squatted down so that he could be eye to eye with Karkat who was quite short in comparison to the blond male. He then removed his hand from his back, and showed the boy a computer chip of sorts. Actually, it was the same program that helped the trolls disguise themselves to appear more human. Karkat seemed quite surprise, along with Sollux who was now standing right next to him.

"I suggest that you kids keep a good eye on this chip right here..." The adult said with a cool Texas accent. Karkat stared at it for a moment, then quickly snatched it from Dirk's hands. "I may be an adult and all that, but I'm not stupid. You didn't come from around here, I can tell." He said while carefully standing back up and starring over the rest of the young trolls. Karkat was too dumbfounded to say a word. "Wow..." The man continued with a smile. "Aliens huh?"

"Wait..." Karkat finally said. "How do you know about that?"

Dirk simply looked at him through the triangle shaped sunglasses he was wearing and smiled some more.

"I've seen stranger in my life." He said in the middle of what seemed like a brief pondering. "But anyway, good luck finding a new place to stay...if you can at least..."

"No wait! That's not fair!" Karkat argued in a rage. "They can't take our home!"

"It wasn't my idea little guy, believe you me." Said dirk while now facing his back towards the group of troll kids. "There's only so much I can do to get _the man_ to avoid you guys."

"This is absolute bull!" The adolescent troll shouted.

Dirk scratched the back of his head.

"I'll tell you what..." He said with the same Texas accent. He then turned back again to face the aliens before continuing on with his idea.

"Just down the hill there should be a dirt covered road hidden in the brush. Keep your eyes open for it, cause you wouldn't want to miss something so camouflaged as that. Follow it. It should lead you to a nice old cave area where you can possibly spend your nights at. Here are a few supplies to get you started..." Slung over Dirk's right shoulder was a red duffle bag that clanked whenever he removed it and sat it down on the ground before the others.

"It's got cooking tools and other good camping supplies inside, so all of you should be good to go. The reason I brought it with me is because I often like to camp out up here in the night. If you want, I'll even come and find you to deliver you some food and other day to day necessities."

"Woah woah woah..." Karkat stopped him. "You're trying to tell US that OUR ONLY OPTION for a living quarters, is to sleep in a FUCKING CAVE?"

"That's right." Strider said. "At least until I can find you guys a better place to stay. It's either the cave, or you guys get to sleep in the trees. Imagine it, cold nights, huddled up together, completely venerable to any storm or wild animal that may come your way...shit here on Earth could very well eat you alive."

As though on cue, a small moth landed on top of Karkat's nose and started to make itself at home, causing Vantas to fly backwards in a panic and crash into the other trolls.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAH! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!" The boy screamed. Dirk just laughed.

"Except for that." He said. "That little guy is as weak as the hairs on a dead dude's head..."

"Ugh..." Karkat said. "Will someone help me up?" Kanaya, who was also listening to the conversation, helped lift Vantas back onto his feet, however at the same time, not once did she take her eyes off of the Strider brother.

"So anyway..." Continued Dirk. "...You gonna take the supplies or what?"

"Yeah fine..." Karkat reluctantly complied. He attempted to pick up the big bag and throw it over his shoulders, but the thing was just too heavy for him to manage. "DAMN IT! EQUIUS! LIFT THIS INFERNAL OBJECT FOR ME OK?"

Equius quickly hupped to the front of the crowd and lifted the bag as though it was as simple as a tiny marble. Thank goodness he was so strong.

"Well, we'll be off now!" Karkat said with crossed arms. "Thank you for your..._'help'_" And he began to walk off.

"No problem creepy dude." Dirk replied calmly. "And by the way!" He shouted as the group had already gone a few feet ahead of him. "The cave is in the opposite direction!"

"DAMN IT!" Karkat's frustrated voice was easily heard in the madness, and he immediately turned around. "I totally knew that..." He said while passing by the Strider brother yet a second time. Dirk simply chuckled.

A few hours later, at John's house, the messy haired boy was once again doing dishes for his father. This was around the time that he would often daydream about practically anything that crossed his mind. At the time for example, the only thing he could think about were those odd exchanged students from earlier that day. There was something weird about them, and he was determined to figure out why. Then in the midst of this awkward daydreaming sequence, John's dad passed by to see how he was doing with his chores. So as an automatic reaction to this, the boy put on his special nose and mustache disguise that he loved so much.

"John's not here dad." He said while continuing.

"Oh..." His father replied semi gruffly. "Well then, thank you for doing the dishes for me odd stranger boy."

"Eeyup..."

With that, his father left the room. For some reason Egbert thought that it was particularly amusing to "trick" his father, even though his dad knew very well that John was still John. The boy continued to ponder. He remembered the strange questions some of the foreign children were asking the teachers. He remembered their odd actions, and their out of the ordinary eye colors. He remembered how Karkat had called him and his friends "humans" before eagerly correcting himself. That was it! John suddenly realized that these kids WERE out of the ordinary! The program that Jade had installed may have actually worked! He placed the dishes down roughly in the drainer, perhaps too roughly even, because in doing so, his feet shifted, and he slipped over a pile of dish soap that had fallen on the floor only moments earlier.

"OW! FUCK!" He yelped after impact to the ground. His dad peeked in.

"Stranger boy? Are you alright?" He asked curiously. The man then noticed that John's disguise had fallen off. "Oh, hello John. It was the strangest thing, I thought for sure there was a complete stranger doing the dishes for us." The man joked before exiting the room yet a second time.

"Yeah yeah...funny one dad..." John sighed with his back still glued to the kitchen floor. He didn't want to get up just yet. "I have to tell the others about my discovery!" He said to himself excitedly. Then he finally got up and stabilized his blue sock covered feet to the ground.

When he got to his room to contact his friends, there was a mess of clothes all over the floor because he hadn't yet gotten to cleaning it. He managed to swim through though, and get to his computer.

"hello?" He typed. "is anyone on?"

"put your headphones on john, ill talk to you through my mic" Jade replied.

"ok!" John said. He then plugged in his head set and connected to Jade's server.

"Can you hear me John?" She asked in her happy high pitched voice.

"Loud and clear Harley. Man, I haven't used my mic in a while. Kind of feeling like James Bond right now, you know?"

"Why? Are we being secretive?" Jade asked.

"No, it just seemed like a cool concept." Egbert smiled.

"I guess so. Sorry I have to talk to you this way, as I said yesterday, I have a lot of homework to do." Harley apologized from the other side of her computer.

"Oh yeah, that's fine. I remember you mentioning that. Is anyone else on?"

"No, haven't been sense school got out."

"They're probably busy then huh?"

"Probably."

"Well, I wanted to tell you something really cool!" John mentioned. At the same time he began to load his Ghost Busters PC game.

"Really?" Jade asked. "And what's that?"

"Well, I was thinking about those exchanged students. Didn't they seem kind of...over the top to you?"

"Yeah. I guess they kind of were now that I think about it."

"Oh they were more than a little bit strange." Egbert continued. "They kept asking these weird questions that would make sense to anyone else, even someone who lived on the completely opposite side of the Earth."

"Ok, and?" Jade asked.

"Based on that, I think that they may be those aliens that we were trying to summon from before!"

"That's really rude John! Just because they were different doesn't necessarily mean they were from another planet! You should really think before you speak!" The girl scolded.

"But I'm serious Jade! Why else would Karkat call us humans at first instead of, "hey you!" or "excuse me", you know, like normal people do?"

"Maybe he spoke another language before he moved here and he's still getting use to our terms." Harley explained.

"No way Jade! If that was the case then Rose wouldn't have been struck down by that one English grammar genius! Don't you see? This is really really weird!"

"Well...he might not have been as educated as the other student was at the time."

"I don't get it Jade. You were so excited about this before! I thought you believed in supernatural things like this happening."

"I did..." Jade's voice lowered a register, almost making her sound a little disappointed in herself.

"Then what happened?" John asked curiously.

"I'm just so use to failing that I guess it's caused me to become skeptical...basically, I'm not going to believe in anything like that unless something really phenomenal happens so that it HAS to be true."

"Wow Jade...that makes me kind of sad, no lie." John huffed. "But I guess if you want proof, I'm just going to have to find some for you huh?"

"Yeah, and when you do, I think I'll be able to believe you about it better." The girl replied, a little bit happier than before.

"So you want physical evidence? Not just any old hypothesis right?" John asked.

"Uh huh!"

"I think I can do that...just wait a few days and you'll get your evidence in no time."

"Alright John, I'm counting on you." Said Jade with a smile. She honestly wanted to believe very much, it was just hard given her current situation. And the program did have very different actions from any other normal PC device. She clicked on her television.

"So what are you up to right now, besides homework and all?" John asked, meanwhile kicking enemy ghost butt.

"Noting really." Jade replied. "Just channel surfing. Nothing is ever on anymore." She paused momentarily when she saw something on TV that caught her attention. "What about you?"

"Playing Ghost Busters..." The brunette boy answered. "...Other than that nothing though."

"Hm...that's interesting..." The Harley girl said under her breath.

"What is it?" John asked.

"Turn on your television and check out the local news station. They're doing a report on the woods and showing this really neat run down building. I think it might be the one Dave was talking about from before."

"Really? Oh I've gotta see that!" On another tab, John searched up his favorite live TV website and watched the video.

_"Coming to you live from Doustin Woods, local authorities have reported this building as an unexplained phenomenon. Just discovered last night by Dirk J. Strider, this run down laboratory had been noticed, sitting in front of what he calls, 'The Daily Color Bomb', or rather, the evening sunset. Interviewers are asking him questions now. Paul..." _The camera switched to another news man.

"Hey! Dirk is Dave's big brother! I wonder if he knows about this..." John said in the middle of examining the report.

"I'm sure he does. Now shoosh, I want to hear what he has to say."

_"Thanks Barb." _The television continued. The news man was standing right in front of the Strider brother. _"You heard it right folks. This building has been completely unnoticeable until last night, and some are even going so far as to blame it on supernatural causes, that including **'Aliens'**. What do you think of this_ _chilling observation Dirk?" _He motioned the mic to the blond male's lips.

_"Honestly after all the shit I've seen around these parts, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised." _

"Aw man, Dave has got to see this! I'm going to call him!" John interrupted yet a second time. Jade was too distracted to really give him her input. The television went on.

_"Really? Do you come to the woods often Mr. Strider?" _The news reporter asked.

_"Oh hell yeah. I come here to camp, fish, and sometimes even train with my awesome swords. Takes a lot to be a rough ass ninja like me." _He smiled.  
_"But all joking aside, nobody actually knows where something like this would come from. It's too great to have any solid explanation."_

_"I see. Anything else you would like to add in?" _

Strider shrugged._  
_

_"Alright then, how did you actually come to this discovery?" _The man asked instead.

_"I dunno, I was just kind of doing my own little thing when I saw this weird electrical light coming from this direction, so I went towards it and found this big old laboratory sitting here. Nothing I've ever seen before."_

"Aw man, Dave is totally watching with us now Jade." Egbert interrupted yet a third time.

"Uh huh..." Replied Jade in a near daze. She almost couldn't believe what she was seeing.

_"Hmm...Very strange indeed." _Commented the reporter. He then turned back to the camera and continued speaking. _"For a while we were unable to view the inside of this foreign building, but now with recent permissions, we are able to take a closer look. Going back to Barb for the details..." _

_"Thanks again Pau-" _The female news lady was unable to be heard in finishing her sentence, for right when all three of the children had eased into their screens in intrigue, the power had shut off completely for each of them.

"Aw no way!" John exclaimed. "They were just getting to the good part! A-and I didn't get to finish my game!"

At her house, Jade too looked at the television in shock. Dave however looked up at the ceiling, more surprised about the power outage than anything. There wasn't anything happening outside that could have caused it when he peeked out his window, so he wondered if this was a normal happenstance. It was then that he realized that everyone else in his apartment building was completely blacked out as well!

"John?" He asked on his cell phone. That was how him and ghost buster boy were communicating with each other in the first place. "Did your power go out too?" After a minute, Dave could hear some fumbling on the other side of the phone as Egbert attempted to get back on.

"Yeah! It was the weirdest thing! All my electric stuff just completely backfired on me!" He replied, still a little surprised about the entire situation.

"Weird...wonder if Jade is having the same problem." Dave said while thinking.

"I could put her on three way..." John said.

"Does Jade even have a working cell phone? I remember she ended up flushing her last one down the toilet, couldn't get it out for weeks."

"Oh yeah..." Sighed the dark haired boy. "Damn..."

"Look man, we're going to have to figure this out another time, my phone is running on low as it is and I want to conserve some energy at least until the power comes back on again." Dave explained.

"Yeah, that's fine. Completely understandable actually. I guess I'll just play ghost busters another time. Sigh."

"Sure thing bro, talk to you later."

"Yup." And with that, the two friends hung up.

Meanwhile, Karkat and the other trolls had made themselves at home inside the cave Dirk had mentioned to them before, all in their original forms now due to the chip being successfully re installed.

"Ladieth and gentle trollth, we now have power!" Sollux managed to connect enough electrical instruments to power up an entire city! All with the help of one severely damaged potato.

"DAMN IT SOLLUX! I WAS GOING TO EAT THAT!" Karkat shouted in a rage. The others however were applauding the Captor.

"Relax KK, it'th only until we find another way to keep our electrical equipment in good working condithion. Bethideth, we're going to have to thimmer down thomewhat, conthidering with the amount of light we have now, we could be thpotted from mileth away." Sollux explained.

"Motherfuckin' miracles." Gamzee smiled from his corner of the cave. "Good thing Solbro here had enough shiny shit in his bag to make this all up and motherfuckin happen! Now we've got husk tops and heaters galore! How does shit like electricity work anyway? Miracles my brothers, that's how."

Karkat rolled his eyes.

"Burned my fucking potato..." He continued to complain.

"Oh cheer up Karkat!" Terezi said from behind him. She put her fingers up his mouth to make him smile. "At least we're safe from those awful human authority figures, right?"

"DAT POFADO WASH ALL I HAG TO EAT! Guh...will you pleave shtop playing wiff my mouff now Tereshi?"

"Oh fiiine..." The Pyrope complained. She then let go. "You're no fun Karkles."

Karkat wiped his face.

"Yeah yeah..." He replied dryly.

In the far right of the cave, Tavros was attempting to cook marsh mellows with the heater and being very unsuccessful.

"Silly Tavroooooooos! That isn't how you cook a marsh mellow!" Vriska teased. She then put two marsh mellows on the tips of Tavros's horns and pressed his face close to the heater. "Ahahaha! Now THAT'S how you do it!" She said with her tongue sticking out.

"Vriska...this heater is very hot!" The poor Nitram complained.

"Of course it is! How else do you expect to get those marsh mellows cooked?" She pulled his head away from the heating device and plucked off one of the them from his right horn, then promptly stuck it in her mouth with satisfaction.

Kanaya came to Vantas's side.

"Karkat..." She said.

"What...?"

"You needn't worry about not having anything to eat for supper tonight." She explained smoothly. "Aradia and I are already on the job. Equius and Feferi offered to help us, but I'm afraid that did not turn out as planned." She slowly motioned to the two trolls who had volunteered, and their inability to cook was inevitable, for while Feferi was trying to get a live squid off of her face, Equius was breaking every dish he picked up by mistake, all the while saying oops every time something crashed. This caused Karkat to face palm.

"It's a wonder I'm not getting concussions from the amount of times I have to express my despite towards the entire fucking lot of you!" He groaned loudly. "What are you even making anyway? It smells kind of...strange..."

"Well, actually..." Kanaya answered. "...We decided to get creative. All I can say, is that you shall have your potatos yet Vantas." An immediate poofing sound came from another area in the cave, and Aradia came out of a near by tunnel with a considerable amount of smoke surrounding her hair.

"It...is ready..." The ram horned said with a twitch.

"OH COD! WWHAT IS THAT SMELL?" Eridan asked from his own "personalized" section of the cave.

"I had a little accident..." Answered Aradia.

"Miss Megido! What happened to you?" Kanaya asked in surprise.

"I...don't really know..." Aradia answered. "But...the food is finished."

"Is it...edible?" Equius asked while holding his nose.

"I sure hope so..." Was all the maroon blood's reply. Then when the fog cleared, the dish of...um...well let's just say gloop, was finally revealed.

A emphasized look of disgust crossed almost every troll's face when this monstrosity was revealed, and a glowering shade over took each of their eyes. The gloop didn't really help their looks decrease at all, considering at that moment it decided to bubble up like the gooey mess that it was.

"What ith it...?" Sollux twitched.

"I'm almost expecting it to crawl off the plate..." Vriska joined.

Feferi, who was still struggling in the background, finally managed to pull the squid off of her face and look at Aradia's disaster of a failed recipe.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAH! DEMON BE GONE!" She said, not too long before throwing the squid on the ground just in front of Aradia's feet. It simply flopped away.

"It was suppose to be mashed potatoes and bird beast strips..." The curly haired woman explained with almost dramatically anime style sobby eyes.

"I'll try it bro!" From the back, Gamzee waved his hand about in trying to get the girls attention. The crowd of trolls then separated as if to make a pathway for Gamzee to walk though.

"Go ahead fuckface, I'm not touching that shit..." Karkat said with a twitch.

"Don't mind if I do best friend." The goat horned boy said with a calm smile. He walked forward, and every step that he took seemed to take hours to the rest of the trolls. None of them took their eyes off of him as he presumed to lift his hand towards the greenish yellow creation that was suppose to be supper. His fingers dug inside, then lifted to his mouth, still bubbling warm. He licked it off.

"Hmmm..." He said while scratching his chin with his opposite hand. He then took another bite and thought about it even more. "Mmhmmmm..." The trolls continued to watch him intently.

"Well?" Karkat asked impatiently.

"Just a sec best friend, I have to savor it..." Gamzee said while taking yet a third bite of the blob pie. "Uh...huh..."

"OH JUST GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!"

Gamzee shrugged.

"Honk." Was his only reply.

"THAT DOESN'T ANSWER MY FUCKING QUESTION! HOW THE FUCK DID IT TASTE MAKARA? AND DON'T YOU DARE REPLY WITH ANOTHER HONK OR SO HELP ME, YOU WILL NEVER LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY OF MIRACLES EVER AGAIN!" Karkat was certainly having a conniption fit.

"It was motherfuckin' good bro." Gamzee replied with a thumbs up sign. This caused Karkat to fall over from standing.

"Hmm, in that case..." Terezi began. "I guess we should start digging in huh?"

"Are you kiddin' Pyrope?" Eridan said with crossed arms. "I ain't touchin' that shit if it fuckin killed me!"

"Alright then." Pyrope replied. "Go ahead and starve! I for one am digging in! Serve me a plate Aradia, this stomach craves some munchies!" And at that, practically everyone but Eridan joined the teal blood and ate a wholesome meal, no matter how gross it smelled or looked.

"Well fuck you guys!" Eridan said while making himself at home in his little area of the cave. "I'll eat my own meal!" He picked up a rock and attempted munching on it, only to make annoying crunching sounds with his mouth. Then when he swallowed, his entire body shivered with disgust.


	5. Episode 5: Photographs and Flush

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 5

PHOTOGRAPHS AND FLUSH

Rose looked through the lowest level of her large house with flashlight in hand. She too was affected by the town black out, but it was something she was more use to. For a moment the light in her hand started to flicker some, but she managed to fix it by slapping it down a couple times in her free palm. She then looked through a couple of old drawers, not once opened in years. Nothing. Whatever it was she was looking for wasn't there.

"Hmm..." She wondered for a moment, then closed the drawers in front of her to look beyond them and at this large wizard statue. Her mother was an AVID fan of wizards and the like, so Rose wasn't in the least bit surprised. She walked over to it, and tapped it once with her hand, even going so far as to examine it for cameras. It seemed safe, so with that, she carefully felt the underside of the wizard statue's chin. Just as she thought, there was a latch connecting to its neck. Good thing she found that key earlier. With it, she was able to unlock the back of its head, and carefully lift it up much like an old pez dispenser. And also like a pez dispenser, something came out of its neck, only instead of it being a giant piece of pez, it was a journal of sorts.

"Yes!" She whispered out in success.

Rose took the book carefully, and held it to her chest. Words were imprinted on it, unreadable words as of yet, but she was determined to find out what it said somehow. The girl then eyed the corner of the room and dusted off a few cobwebs before sitting down in that specific area of the basement. She also had a blanket around her waist, that in which she used to cover her body once she sat down so that she could perhaps blend in with the wall just in case her mom decided to come down the stairs.

It was silent when she opened it up. She didn't dare say a word after all. And when she did manage to see a few of the pages, they were covered in dust that flew up and caused her to sneeze softly. She continued to examine. It appeared that inside the book there were multiple old photographs of her mother when she was around her age. Rose squinted to examine them beyond the flashlight. They were nothing really important, but then when one of the photographs wasn't attached right, it slipped out from the middle and flipped over so that its backside was revealed. Rose picked it up off of her lap and looked closely. It appeared to have some kind of weird coding imprinted into it, filled with random numbers and letters. The blond girl put it back in its original spot after her only conclusion was that it was something that you don't usually see every day. She wondered if it was the same for the other pictures too, so she detached a few more of the loosely placed photographs and looked at the backside of those as well. It was the same results.

She continued to look. There was nothing too interesting just yet, at least until she got to the very back of the journal where she saw two other pictures that caught her attention. One, was of her mother whenever she was younger, so it was black and white, while the other, was a colored picture of her mom that looked MUCH more recent than the last in style _and_ in camera affects. Then instead of codes being written on the backs of each picture, there were dates. This verified the fact that something strange really WAS going on, for as the back of black and white picture had the year "1987" on it, the other _colored_ picture had the year "2011", and as far as the young Lalonde daughter was concerned, that was the current year.

Rose closed the book after this discovery, because she heard a creaking noise coming from the upstairs bedroom, a room not too fair from the hallway leading into the basement stairs. She then got up slowly, careful not to make a sound, and replaced the stolen journal with another random book she found sitting not too far away. Meanwhile the REAL book would soon be wrapped up into her blanket, and taken to her room for safe keeping. In the morning, she would show the others her discovery.

Fortunately for the towns people, the power came back on the next morning, and once again, the crowd of "foreign exchanged students" readied their bags and arrived at the high school. The night before, Sollux had found a way to conserve their energy and make it, well, less obvious to anyone who was walking in the woods that there were strange glowing lights coming from a cave not too far away. It was a tired day, one that was heavily crowded in fog and gray clouds covering up all the blue in the sky. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if it started to rain sometime soon.

For the trolls, the night before was an awful one. Many of them were having the worst time trying to get to sleep, even though somewhere late in the night Dirk came in with multiple sleeping bags on arm. Of course he didn't have enough for everyone, so some had to share beds, which was more than just a little bit awkward to many of the cranky individuals. He apologized for it though, and promised that he would make it up to them as soon as possible, even if the way he said it WAS rather dry and very NEARLY couldn't be taken seriously. Because of this, Karkat had been complaining their entire way to school, however much of his OTHER ungodly rants also involved the fact that Terezi wouldn't stop clinging to him when he deliberately said that he would be sharing sleeping bags with nobody but himself because he was the leader and that was that.

It was the same old routine in the morning. John still had to deal with little papers being thrown at the back of his head; Rose still had to deal with the foreign students surpassing her intellectual might. During fourth period though (this being the period right before lunch), Jade had realized that something was wrong with one of the students.

It was art class, and little Tavros was drawing pictures, but at the same time, there was a look of disdain in his eyes. Harley became curious.

"Um...excuse me..." She said while peering over his shoulder. "...Could I maybe borrow one of your colored pencils please?" In reality, Jade didn't need a colored pencil, it was just her way of trying to start a conversation with someone she had never really talked to before.

"Oh...uh...sorry, yeah...you can borrow one." The now legless boy replied nervously. The girl sat down next to him.

"Hey...are you ok?" She asked with her hands folded between her lower thighs.

"Uh...y-yeah...I'm fine." The boy looked at her, and Jade was able to get a closer look. He had very light brown eyes, light like rust, and his skin was somewhat tanner than hers'. His eyelashes were long too, therefore causing his irises to appear all the more unique, and his hair was fluffed up into a Mohawk.

"You look kind of sad...which is why I asked." Jade said with a calming tone.

The boy swallowed nervously.

"I guess I'm just a little nervous about being here. Some of the kids were talking about me I think. About...my legs. Or rather, my lack of legs." He rolled out slightly from the table to show the girl his stumps. He wore shorts over them, but they were still seen peeking out from the inside of his pant sleeves.

"Oh yeah." Jade said. "Well, I noticed that you didn't really have anything there, but really, that doesn't make you any different from the rest of us! You just need a little more confidence in yourself is all!"

The boy's face darkened with rust colored blush, and he quickly looked away.

"I...uh...m-my name is Tavros...by the way..." He stammered shyly.

"Hello Tavros!" Jade smiled. "I'm Jade. Jade Harley." The girl put out her hand for the boy to shake as a greeting, however with him unable to recognize this gesture, he simply glanced at her palm, then at her in a very questioning manor. He poked it with his finger, and Jade only giggled.

"Hehe, like this..." She grabbed his hand and very gently shook it. "See?" She said with a smile.

There was no possible way to describe the amount of rust coloration that was streaking across Tavros's face at this very moment. He was so surprised, and looked at her in a daze.

"That's how we great each other here in America. Neato, huh?" The girl only continued to smile. Tavros quickly struggled his hand free and blinked some.  
"Oh, sorry, did I offend you?" Jade asked with a look of concern.

"N-no...I guess I'm just not use to people touching me...ever" The boy replied while avoiding eye contact. All of this was so new to him. How was he suppose to know a hand shake was some sort of greeting on Earth? Jade peeked over his shoulder yet again, this time, at the picture he was drawing. It appeared to be some sort of version of Peter Pan holding hands with...Rufio? From Hook? And it was pretty well done if she did say so.

"Hey, that's really good." She complemented with a smile.

"Oh...thank you." Tavros blushed. "Actually...it's just sort of something silly really..."

"Oh? Why do you say that?" The Harley girl asked in confusion. "Who are they exactly?"

"Um...that's the silly part...but..." He pointed to the one in the green suit. "That one is Pupa Pan..." His finger shifted to the other one who was standing next to Pupa. "...And that one is Rufio. R-Rufio...isn't real...and actually, he is just a part of my imagination...so...he's fake."

"Oh I see, so like an imaginary friend right?" Jade asked sweetly.

"Yeah...I guess so." Tavros replied with a frown.

"I don't see anything wrong with that!" Harley grinned. "Actually, i think it's kind of cute if you ask me."

"C-cute?" Nitram asked. This time he looked up at her and briefly made eye contact, only to look away again once he got a glance at her vivid green irises.  
"It isn't cute to me..."

"It isn't? How come?" Asked Jade curiously.

"B-because..." Tavros stuttered. His eyes then shifted to the side and he began to smile. "It...is awesome..."

That statement caused Jade to giggle some. He was like a shy little teddy bear! It was adorable.

"All right then Tavros. It isn't cute, it's awesome, just like you said!" She grinned.

"Yeeeeah" The boy grinned. His teeth were somewhat sharper than normal, and Jade noticed that. They weren't sharp enough however to be something inhuman. She figured it was just something else that stood out about him.

"So where exactly do you and your friends come from Tavros?" Jade asked, changing the subject.

"Uh...we come from...er..." He looked around the room for a hopeful reference to what earth countries were called, and was lucky enough to spot an abstract map on the wall. "Ca-nadia?" He stuttered questionably. Jade giggled.

"You mean Canada?" She asked. Her nose wrinkled in disbelief. "That doesn't sound so foreign to me..."

"Oh, well...that's because I was joking..." Tavros laughed nervously. "I actually meant that...we live in...um..." He examined the map yet again. "S-South America! Yeah! The English speaking part of it! If...there is any English speaking part..."

"There is!" Jade smiled.

"Oh good..." Mumbled Nitram.

"Hm? Good what?" The girl asked curiously.

"Uh...y-yesterday's lunch! Yeah...it was really good!" He tried to make up for his mumbling, but sort of failed horrifically.

"You think that the school lunch is good? That's a first..." Said Jade.

"Oh, well, I didn't actually have school lunch." Tavros explained. "Karkat made sure to bring us all some food in a bag."

Jade giggled again.

"You mean like a bagged lunch, right?"

"Yeah, that! Wow...I'm really bad at this...aren't I?"

"No no no, you're just new is all! You'll be fine. Don't worry." Smiled Harley. Her words of encouragement were very stimulating to the young troll human, and he was beginning to like her a lot.

"You know what?" She said. "I think that I'm going to draw with you."

With that, the girl got out a piece of blank paper and the colored pencil she was borrowing, then began to draw.

"What are you going to draw? Uh, if you don't mind me asking that is." The curious boy asked.

"It's fine." Jade replied. She continued to draw. "I'll show you once I'm finished." After a few seconds past, the sketch was done. "There we go!" She said happily. The girl then lifted up the picture for Tavros to see. "It's a squiddle!"

"Heh..." Tavros grinned. "It's really cute Jade!"

"Hehe, don't you mean awesome Tavros?" Harley smiled.

"Oh yeah! That too." Smiled the Nitram boy. They laughed together briefly, then continued on drawing squiddles and fairies for the rest of art class.

When lunch arrived, Jade sat her squiddle decorated lunch bag on the table and relaxed with her friends.

"So how's it going everyone?" She asked happily. She then noticed that there was a small wad of paper stuck in John's hair. "Um...John? There's something in your..."

John sighed.

"In my hair...right?"

"Yeah..." Jade replied.

"Fuck it, I'll just leave it there...if anyone asks, it's some sort of new trend that everyone else is missing out on...ugh..."

"Is Karkat throwing wads of paper at the back of your head again John?" Rose asked simply.

"How'd you guess?"

"Call it...an intelectual's intebition." The blonde girl replied before taking another bite out of her salad.

"Hey, let me see that for a second." Dave said while taking the wad of paper off of John's head. He then looked at the forein group table and carefully aimed. Somehow he managed to throw a curve ball and hit the back of Karkat's head in perfect target range.

"HEY! WHO DID THAT? I SWEAR WHOEVER THREW THAT AT MY HEAD IS GOING TO PAY BIG TIME!" The angry Vantas said while looking every which way all except for the direction Dave was sitting.

"Woah dude! How did you do that without him noticing?" John whispered in awe.

Dave crossed his arms.

"It's the way I roll John. Not to mention my..." He lowered his glasses so that his reddish eyes were slightly visible above the lenses. "...Strider Swag"

"Oh I feel faint~!" Jade teased while dramatically placing the back of her hand against her forehead in emphasized awe.

Rose finished the last of her milk.

"Well, before the bell rings for class, there is something I would like to show all of you." She said while digging into her bag. She pulled out the dusty old book she had found not too long ago.

"Looks really old!" John pointed out.

"Yeah, where did you find it?" Asked Jade.

"In my basement actually. I believe my mother has been hiding it from me for a good long time." The blonde girl very carefully opened up the journal so as not to tear any pages. She then flipped to the back where she had found those strange pictures of her mother in the past as well as current times. "Two very similar pictures, taken at two totally different times, without any proof off aging in my mother's face."

"How cool!" Said John with a very interested grin. "Do you think she's a time traveler or something?"

"Who knows." Replied Lalonde. "But this isn't all that I found." The girl then showed them the back of a few other pictures taken of her mother from the past. "Codes...very elaborate ones I believe." She explained.

"Hmm..." Dave thought to himself for a moment. "Could I see those for a sec Rose?" He asked while holding out his hand to receive them.

"Are you going to throw them at Karkat too?" The girl teased.

"Nah, I just wanna look at them." Replied Dave. Rose agreed to this and handed him the photographs. Strider examined them for a brief moment. "Just as I thought..." He said to them all quietly.

Jade looked at him with intrigue in her eyes.

"What is it Dave?" She asked curiously.

"These pictures aren't fully developed..." He answered. "I bet if I take these home with me I can get them to clear up a little. That is, if it's ok with you Rose."

"I don't mind. Just make sure that you don't ruin them in the process. Can I trust you with that?" She asked while attempting to make complete eye contact through the boy's glasses.

"Don't worry, if I mess these guys up, I'll owe you for the rest of the year. That's a promise."

"The rest of the year hm?" Rose couldn't help but picture Dave attempting to scrub all of her toilets with a tiny little tooth brush and her laughing maniacally in the background. It sounded like a good deal. "Alright then." She said with a partial smile. The two shook hands.

"I'll get 'em back to you as soon as I'm finished. Which shouldn't take too long if I'm doing it right." Dave promised. The two seemed to be at good terms with one another.

At the other table, Tavros was starring up longingly at the ceiling with his hands placed underneath his chin in obvious day dream. Vriska was continuously poking him with her finger, but getting no response.

"Tavros. Tavros. Hey Tavros. Tav. Toreasnore. OH MY GOD IS THAT RUFIO OVER THERE?" She pointed up at a light bulb and Tavros shook himself awake, but not too soon before a bottle of water was poured down over his head. "Oh nevermind." Vriska said. "It was just a light bulb. Wake up some! You're becoming a drag again." She let her arm dangle at her side with the now empty bottle in hand.

"S-sorry Vriska." Tavros said while now soaking wet. "I just met someone really nice today is all...and I think that I may be flushed for her." Flushed was the trolls way of saying that they liked someone.

"AHAHAHAHA!" The Serket laughed. "You have a crush on someone! In this human school! That is so funny I that might just die of laughter!"

"Leave him alone Vriska." Terezi said with crossed arms. "You're completely fine Tavros. If you're feeling flushed for someone it's completely acceptable!"

"You know what you should do Tavros?" Feferi joined in.

"Wh-what?" The bull boy asked.

"You should ask her to hang out with you sometime. One on one! That way you two can share each other's feelings! You two will be matesprits in no time!"

"Oooh! That idea sounds pawsetively purrfect Feferi!" Nepeta, who was also listening to the conversation, said while happily clapping.

"Y-you really think so?" Tavros asked longingly.

"Sure thing!" Smiled Feferi.

"Oh wow...that really IS a great idea! Thank you Feferi!"

"Well I think that it's stupid!" Vriska stated while putting her hand on her hip.

"What do you suggest then spider girl?" The Peixes asked with a teasing smile.

"Hmm...what do I suggest?" She pondered to herself momentarily. "Well...if you REALLY wanna win a girl's heart, you've gotta show 'em who's boss! Be tough like, you know? Give them some muscle power!" She lifted up Nitram's arm, and realized that it looked a lot like a cooked noodle. "Yeah...you're gonna need AAAAAAAALL the help with that one..."

"You all are idiots!" Karkat interrupted.

Terezi looked towards his voice with a grin.

"Hehehehehe! Then you being a boy would know exactly what to do, right Karkles?" She teased.

"Of course I do!" Vantas replied. "Heck, you could even call me an expert on the stuff!"

"Alright then big boy, lay it on us!" The Pyrope grinned.

"Well I would explain it all if there wasn't so much fucking detail involved! So instead, I will humor you with this..." With that, Karkat got out a big book out from his pocket and placed it on the table. Actually, it was a wonder how he managed to fit the thing in his pocket in the first place with how heavy it looked, but the trolls new better than to question it. "It should be able to describe all the shitty details on how to get someone to fall for you. Let's hope you can read well, not to mention are very patient. This whole thing took me about a good half sweep to read on my own...maybe you can just skim it or something though. Actually, do whatever the fuck you want with it, I don't even fucking need it anymore."

"Uh...ok Karkat. Thank you. I think..." Tavros replied weakly. He managed to drag the book onto his lap, even though it landed incredibly hard and kind of hurt some.

"What's everyone all up and chatterin' about?" Gamzee asked. He had finally arrived at the table with a lunch tray in hand.

"Woah!" Karkat exclaimed. "How the fuck did you manage to get a lunch here? Did you not hear me when I said we don't have any human payment?"

"I dunno best friend. I guess I all up and scared the lunch ladies away with my phantasmal motherfuckin' face goop. They was all polite about it though, and said that I could have free lunch anytime I wanted."

"Howw stupid can these lunch ladies get?" Eridan huffed from his seat. "Don't they knoww make up when they sea it? I mean really! And their lunch doesn't evven look like lunch! Looks more like fuckin' crushed grub if you ask me."

Sollux grinned mischievously.

"Cauthe rockth are tho much better. Right CA?"

"Shut up Sol! I wwasn't talkin' to you..." Eridan pouted.

"So any motherfuckin' way..." Gamzee sat down. "What was we gettin' our commune on about here?"

"Tavros feels flushed for a girl he met just recently!" Feferi smiled.

Gamzee looked somewhat surprised at first, but his expression soon relaxed back into his regular one and he smiled while turning his head towards Tavros.

"Woah bro! Good for you!" He smiled.

"Oh...thanks bro." Tavros smiled. He was slightly surprised by Gamzee's soothing reaction.

The evening came quickly, and Dave Strider began making the bathroom into his own personalized cool guy lab. And what he found next in the pictures, was somewhat shocking.

_To be continued... _


	6. Episode 6: Lalonde and Impatude

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 6

LALONDE AND IMPATUDE

Dave placed the photographs neatly into the bathtub, that in which he had filled with developing formulas and the like. It was like a soup of pictures. He learned how to do this from his brother whenever he was younger. Man his bro was cool to teach him! But anyway, he managed to take out one of the pictures carefully. This was the colored picture of Rose's mother. Light reflected off of it and into the boy's dark sunglasses, so to get a better look, he took them off and placed them next to the sink. This was something he rarely ever did around people. Then when the photo cleared up some, he was able to make out more codes on the back, and other information on the front. It involved Rose's mother's name: Roxy Lalonde, her age, her weight, and other little things in between. The picture of her mother, was really some kind of I.D!

Another object of Dave's attention was a symbol on the lower right of the front of the card. A symbol resembling the shape of his older brother's sun glasses. It was flash back time...

Dave was about five years old, and still wearing footy pajamas. (Actually they were smuppet plush pajamas, over protruding butt not included, but we don't have to get into too much detail now do we?) Meanwhile his bro was about 15. So basically the same age that Dave was now. Anyway, there was a time in Dave's life where he was, like any other child, very curious about things. So whenever his bro was working on some sort of school homework assignment, the young Strider noticed this large mystery mechanism hidden underneath a light sheet of blanket and wondered what it was. Turns out that whenever he pulled off the sheet, it was actually some kind of grand machine! There was a screen on it, and several buttons and switches. The thing towered over him as a child, and it sparkled through the little guy's sunglasses.

"Bro!" He squeaked in a tiny cool kid accent. "What's this?" Dirk came in an instant when he heard his little brother checking out this weird machine and swiftly scooped the boy up just underneath his armpits.

"This isn't for you little dude. You don't touch that. Ok?" He said before turning around and putting Dave over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Then while he was walking away, the little Dave looked over his brother's shoulder with his arms dangling down and spotted on the lower right of the device, that his bro's logo was there. The logo on the machine, and the logo on the card, were an exact match!

Older Dave snapped out of his little flash back sequence and put the I.D safely into a bag with some tweezers along with some of the other photos. Turns out that every one of them had the same exact logos on each of their lower right corners. He was on a role. Just then his brother knocked on the door. It was a good time for it though, because Dave was just finishing up draining the bathtub.

"You almost finished in there Dave? Nature is calling and it's calling hard! Guess that's what I get for drinking so much orange pop, but still, can I get in there now please?"

"Yeah bro! Give me a sec!" The younger Strider brother replied. He then quickly took off his clothes and wet his hair to make it look as though he was taking a shower, followed by him wrapping a towel around his waist. After that he sneaked his glasses on and opened the door. Meanwhile the pictures were safe in his pants which was carefully slung over his shoulder.

"Thanks!" At the time, Dirk could care less if he saw anything suspicious, he reeeeally had to go. Then when all was clear, Dave quickly changed and brought the pictures with him to his bro's room.

He creaked open the door, but only so much that he could see what was on the other side. It appeared that his bro was smart enough to move the machine. How he managed to do it without Dave noticing was beyond him though. The only other place Dave could think of when it came to the machine's location, was that big old closet in the hallway next to the kitchen. He was weary about resorting to that one though, because the last time he opened that door, he was attacked yet again by a multitude of smuppets. Oh well, time to get his guts about him and move on! He closed the door to his brother's room.

The closet looked about fifty feet tall to the boy at first, but after shaking his head, he was about to get his whits about him and carefully attempt opening the door. He jiggled the handle, but it appeared to be stuck. Either that or it was locked. That was ok though, because he taught himself how to pick those at a young age.

From his pocket he pulled out a heavy duty paper clip and twisted it into the shape he so desired. Then with it, he managed to stick it through the tiny hole in the knob and twist. A few more jiggles of the handle, and the door was open in no time! He guarded himself for the smuppet attack, but to his surprise, nothing came out. He sighed a quick sigh of relief, then looked up and into the closet to see that the machine was in fact there.

"Hey Dave!" His brother shouted from the bathroom, causing the younger Strider to jump a little. He adjusted his glasses.

"Yeah bro?"

"Do you need the bathroom? I'm gonna take a quick shower myself." Dirk continued.

"Nah, help yourself!" Dave replied. That was wonderful! It would give him plenty of time to figure this thing out.

He examined the machine for a good long time, then noticed that there was a slot where it looked like the I.D would fit in perfectly. The diagram above it said _"face up"_, so once again he carefully got out the photograph and stuck it inside for scanning.

_"You're name please."_ The machine said in a robotic male voice. Dave briefly cleared his throat before doing the best Dirk impression he could possibly muster.

_"Voice accepted. Contacting ROXY LALONDE. Please wait." _

The blonde boy adjusted his glasses while waiting for the screen to process. Soon it turned into a brief static, then cleared up to reveal a girl sleeping in her bed. A young Roxy to be exact.

"Miss Lalonde?" Dave asked. He used one of the levers to zoom in on her face some. The girl started to snore loudly, causing the Strider boy to twitch some. "Wake up?" He asked while scratching his head. Right after he said that, the girl started to stretch, and yawn really loudly. She then noticed Dave from the other side of the screen.

"Dirk? Izat you? Ya look kind of funny. You been drinkin' your milks lately? Ya know, some people say that coffee stunts yer growf. You been drinkin' coffee Drik? Hehehe, Dirk. Whateva."

"No actually. I'm Dave. Dirk's brother." Dave replied.

"Davey! Well aren't you a cutie and a half!" The girl laughed.

"Um...Miss Lalonde?"

"Honey, I think yer thinkin' of someones else. Miss Lalonde is my muffer...mother...hehe...fuck it. Call me Roxy!"

"Weird...that's what Rose's mom told me whenever I first met her...but anyway, now for my question. How are you so young?" The boy asked with confusion.

"Well probabibly cause me and older Roxy are the same person! All asept for the fact that I ain't got as many wrinkle babies that she's gots underneath her little eye foldies. Hehehe, she gets so mad at me when I tells her dyat!"

"No kidding."

"Hey Strudle! Ya gonna tell yer brover that you found this here thingermajiggy? I talk to him a lot through this thing all the time! And he is just a charmer! Him and his younger self like to talk a lot too ya know. I don't know what they're talking about much though. It gets all confuzzling sometimes! So are you gonna tell him? Huh?"

"Probably not. Considering he would most likely give me a good ass whooping if he found out." Dave replied.

"Ha ha ha! So he's all keeping me a secret is he? Well shame on him! I'm not that bad am I? Ya know what Strudder, don't answer that. Let's just talk about shit and be bros or somethin. Ya know?"

"Uhhh..."

"No seriously! Dare's so much for you to know! Oh em geeee! I gotta tells you everyfin! Thing...hehehe fuck it."

"Are you drunk?"

"Naaaw, just a little bit tipsy is awll! Nothin' too bad! I only had a few sips of da drinky lookin' stuff!"

"You're drunk aren't you?"

"Yeeeah...I'm pretty fuckin' drunk." Roxy hiccuped. It was no surprise to Dave either. He already knew about Rose's mom's drinking habbits. "Hey Dove! Er, Dave! There's somethin' I need to tell ya about dis here machiney thing and what it's for!"

"Go ahead." Said Dave.

"Well...hehehe...it's some kind of demential communicator or somefin. I'm actually from another demention than you are. And also, if something weird happens, like, aliens invading or some shit like that, don't worry, it's completely normal! Ya got me?"

"Um...I think so?"

"Mmkay Drave! Oh yeah! You might actually be surprised how close you are to these alien guys too! Dun worry though, they ain't the brain sucking kind. That would be stupid." Said Roxy in a slur.

"Thanks for the warning..."

"No problem Davey poo! Hey, I have somethin' fer ya!" The girl smiled.

"Oh really? And what's that?" Right after he asked this, a card pouch of sorts appeared on a little slab attached to the machine.

"It's called a sylladex." Rose explained. "Look inside!"

Dave took the card pouch and did as he was told. In it, there were multiple digital looking cards with codes on the back.

"Do those look kind of familiar Dave? Like the I.D you used to contact me?"

"Oh yeah, it kind of does..." The boy mentioned. " The codes kind of look similar to the ones on the back of the photos Rose found too..."

"Well that's cause they are silly! Da codes on the back of the photos are given so that you can punch dem in the Punch Designix! That or you can just use this CD majigger and install it onto your computer. It might be a whole lot easier fer ya!" A CD popped out of another slot on the machine.

"Hm. I see." Dave said as he took it for himself.

"Now listen close Dave. When you've got that all installed into your computer, and you punch in those cards, you can summon whatever you decide to create. But that's only if you've got enough grist on hand."

"Grist? What's grist?"

Roxy giggled.

"It's the stuff that comes out of imps and Denizens when ya smash em!"

"Imps? Denizens? What the fuck are those?" The boy asked in confusion.

"Oh you'll find out soon enough Davey! You've already discovered a lot more than you knows thus far! I can't wait for you to figure all this shit out! It'll be so much fun!" Her eyes shifted to look above the boy's head. "Oh em geee! Hi Dirk! Howwa you doooiiii-" Dirk's hand lifted a switch by his younger brother's head. The boy had been caught. Damn him and his ninja showering abilities!

"Dave! Didn't I tell you a while back not to touch this thing?" Dirk asked with a strictness in his tone.

"Yeah bro, but I was like...five! Don't you think I'm old enough to know about this stuff by now?"

Dirk sighed.

"Yeah...but I can't let you know too much just yet! There are some things I still need to figure out myself..."

"All right then bro...I'll be patient." Dave said before getting ready to walk away.

"Dave...wait." Dirk put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You've gotta promise me that you won't tell any of your friends about this yet...ya hear me?"

"Got it. I won't tell a soul." The younger brother nodded.

"Good boy Dave. Now go to your room."

"Was on my way there to begin with Dirk."

Dave turned around and walked back into his bedroom, relieved that he didn't get the butt whopping that he had so expected. Then when he got there, he closed his door, and sat down at his computer to try out this new CD Roxy had given him. Whenever it downloaded, it was titled, "Grist Torrent", and had many bars and symbols displayed below it.

"Hm...so this is grist huh?" He said to himself while hovering his mouse over each object. He then took out one of the blank cards from inside his new Sylladex and examined it thoroughly. It seemed pretty useless at this point, so he simply closed up hi program, and kept the items hidden in his closet for now until he knew what to do with them. Things were getting quite interesting.

In the night and deep into the troll cave, all was quiet. All twelve were sleeping peacefully in their specially shared sleeping bags. Terezi was clinging to Karkat even though she was told multiple times not to sleep with him, and Nepeta began to purr as she was curled up in a sleepy little ball next to Equius. Tavros however, was having an awful night. There were unfamiliar sounds coming from every which way, and he was hiding himself underneath the large folded sleeping bag that he was sharing with Gamzee. With his head propped up by a number of pillows to support his horns, he was facing a sleeping Aradia who had her own separate sleeping bag near by.

Another sound murmured in the darkness. It sounded like a snorting gremlin or something. This made the horned boy cringe and hide himself even further underneath the blanket.

"V-Vriska? Is that you?" To be honest, Tavros would have felt more relieved if it _was_ in fact Vriska. But he knew it wasn't, because she was sleeping a few bags away from him with Kanaya. A shadow flashed across the cave's walls, and finally, the bull boy sat up in a jolt. He clung to the blanket still for comfort and rubbed Gamzee's shoulder.

"G-Gamzee? Wake up...I-I think that there's something in the cave with us..." He whispered loudly, but not too soon before in his sleep, Makara had reached out and strongly clung Tavros to his chest as though he was some kind of teddy bear.

"Bro...you are so motherfuckin' squishy..." Gamzee murmered. He was known for his occasional sleep talk.

It took a while for Tavros to break free, but he managed, and the clown troll only went right back to being comfy on his side. He was out of it. The noise became louder, and Tavros decided he would try to wake up Aradia instead, so he lightly nudged her shoulder.

"Aradia? A-are you awake?" He whispered so as not to wake anyone else up. The ram horned girl softly opened her eyes.

"Yes..." She said quietly. "What is it Tavros...?"

"I-I think that I heard something growling earlier..." The boy replied shaking.

"Really?"

"Uh huh..."

"Hm..." Aradia slowly sat up and looked around, careful not to wake Sollux or Feferi who were also sleeping with her in the process. She looked around. "There doesn't appear to be anything here out of the ordinary..."

"I know I heard something...th-there was a shadow too." Nitram explained.

"Don't worry Tavros, I believe you."

"Wwill you twwo stop whispering ova there?" Eridan whispered from his corner of the cave. "I'm tryin' to get some beauty sleep..." He was curled up in a ball alone with a blind fold on because Feferi refused to sleep next to him any longer after they had started arguing the night before.

"You're awake too Eridan?" Aradia asked quietly.

"Yeah...no thanks to you guys...actually, to tell you the truth, I haven't fallen asleep yet at all..." His back was facing them as he spoke.

"Really? Th-then did you hear the noises too?" Tavros whispered in the mild darkness. Some of the moonlight was pouring in from a hole in the side of the cave.

"Wwhy should I tell you?" Ampora huffed. He lifted his blindfold somewhat as he spoke, then let it release back in place once he finished.

"Because I asked politely? Maybe?" The bull horned boy replied.

Eridan turned onto his back in frustration.

"Ok yeah, I may havve heard somethin'. Wwhat of it?"

"Well..." Said Aradia. "What do you think it sounded like to you?"

"I thought it was just someone snorin'." Eridan replied.

Just then, a large shadow appeared on the wall! It had a large and annoying joker hat on, and it wouldn't stop moving its body up and down as though it was breathing. The three trolls looked towards the hole in the cave wall where the moonlight was shining in, and Tavros yelped while pointing.

"That's it! That's the shadow maker!" He nearly shrieked. It was an imp of sorts! A little pitch black one with sharp teeth! Aradia covered Tavros's mouth.

"Don't worry Tavros...I'll get rid of it..." She attempted to tip toe over the other sleeping bags in her bare feet to perhaps capture the thing, but right when she was close enough to grab it, the imp hopped towards her and caused her to trip while making hideous gurgling sounds! This caused almost everyone to wake up in the process. Kanaya, the one who Aradia ended up tripping over, sat up quickly and rubbed her eyes.

"What in the world is going on here?" She asked as calm as possible.

"Th-There's an imp!" Tavros yelped and pointed at the little imp. It was trying to get away. Kanaya stood up and pulled a chainsaw out of nowhere.

"I'll take care of it." She said with a look of determination. The creature only kept running, and jumped on top of Karkat's head, so he didn't stay asleep for very long.

"OW! WHAT THE FUCK?" He asked while rapidly swiping his hands over his head in a panic.

"There it goeth!" Sollux pointed. The thing leaped up and on top of Equius's head. He was already awake, so when he tried to smash it with his palm, he ended up smashing his own skull in the process and knocking himself out.

"Equius no!" Nepeta squeaked. "Filthy rat! MNYA!" She leaped up towards it while it was in mid air, but failed to catch it and ended up falling on her stomach.

"I've got it! I've got it!" Feferi flailed. The imp only landed on her shoulder, then leaped up to her head and onto the ground, so the girl was unable to get a hold of the creature. "Nevermind!" She pouted.

Finally, two hands grasped at the annoying little beast and it squirmed and squirmed, but was unable to break free. It was Vriska who caught it.

"GAAAH!" She struggled to hold onto it alone, so both Sollux and Kanaya had to help her keep it captured by placing their hands around it too. Kanaya then hit it with the handle of her chainsaw so it became very dizzy, and it stopped struggling. A diamond like shape came out of it, and the Maryam troll collected it into her pocket. This was grist.

"I never thought that I would say this to you before Vriska but, good job." She complemented the young spider girl.

"Hehehe...that's right, I rule." Serket said this while she still had bed head, so it was rather hard to take her seriously.

"I wonder how it's still alive." Aradia commented from the background. "You hit it rather hard."

"Yeah GA. Take it eathy next time." Sollux agreed.

"Well I say we did a great job!" Terezi, who was sitting with her legs crossed on one of the lawn chairs Dirk provided, sipped some red kool-aid out of her mountain water bottle and grinned.

"What do you mean WE Terezi!" Karkat exclaimed. "You didn't even do anything!"

"What could I have done? I'm blind!" Pyrope teased. "What I CAN say though is that with all that chaos, it was beginning to smell a lot like one giant fruit cocktail! Ahahaha!"

"So are we going to kill it now or what?" Vriska asked while starring at the imp. Hearing this, the creature shook its head vigorously. It was finally back to earth.

Gamzee, who had been watching this entire time, got up from his sleeping bag and calmly walked towards the three holding the imp.

"It's motherfuckin cute." He said with a smile. "I think that we should keep it."

"Are you serious!" Karkat flailed in the background.

"Yeah best friend. Just look into its little impy eyes, they are just longing to be loved! Come on bro, don't tell me you can't up and see that."

Karkat sighed.

"Ok, if I come up there and look, will you promise to stop talking about it like that?"

"Sure thing my brother. Take a motherfuckin' gander."

"Fine."

Vantas walked towards the three holding the imp, then looked into the weird looking creature's eyes. It was looking up at him longingly, just like Gamzee said.

"You see bro? He aint doin' no one no harm." Said the Makara boy.

"Ugh...ok, whatever, we can keep it, but YOU'RE going to have to be the one to take CARE of it Gamzee. Also, make sure it's on a leash or something, I don't completely trust it just yet." Karkat agreed.

"Aw yeah best friend! I knew you'd see it my way! Now where the fuck can I find a collar?"

"Guh! Can we thtop holding onto thith thing without it thtruggling now?" Sollux complained.

"I suppose we can try." Kanaya said. "Vriska, do you think you can hold onto it for now?"

"You're seriously gonna leave me with this thing?" The girl twitched. Thankfully though, Gamzee came back in time with a leash and collar then placed it around the imp's neck, so Serket was able to let go. At least after Gamzee named it of course.

"I'm gonna call you Nanners. Heh ha!" Makara smiled. He then walked away with his new pet.

"I can't believe you actually let him do that..." Sollux said with a slump in his back to Karkat.

"Hey, if it keeps him happy." Vantas twitched. "The only problem with one imp is that there are probably others around too. So everyone should keep their fucking wits about them. At least we can get some grist for our alchemy and sylladex shit. Ugh." With that, he sighed, and went back to his sleeping bag. "I'm going back to bed..."

As for the rest of the night, they were able to sleep peacefully. Gamzee cuddled his pet imp, and Tavros wasn't as afraid of it anymore. Of course, like Karkat said though, there were plenty more where that came from...


	7. INTERMISSION ACT 1

Phew. Ok. Hi everyone! I'm slowly starting to run out of ideas for what exactly I want to happen next. Yes, I know, I'm sure it is very saddening to you all, however on a brighter note, I have a whole bunch of ideas concerning Earthstuck further along the lines! So don't worry, I'm not giving up on this story just yet! Anywho, in the mean time, I decided to have a little behind the scenes action with my amazing group of Homestuck character participants! And yes, I do mean the actual Homestuck characters. Well...sort of. (all characters belong to Andrew Hussie, so yeah, don't give me any credit for them) Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first Behind the Scenes Intermission of Awesomeness! May the killing COMMENCE! BUAHAHAHAHAHA!

INTERMISSION

BEHIND THE SCENES ACT 1

Deep in the confounds of time and space there lies a group of vivacious teens! Could they be man? Or beast? WE AS SEEKERS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY! WE ARE THE BOUNTIFUL WHO KNOW NO BOUNDS! AND NO, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS! HEAR US AS WE SEEK OUR ONE TRUE CALLING! EARTHSTUCK! THE ACTORS! THE EXTRODINA-

Karkat: (off screen) WILL YOU GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!

Oh yes. Let us continue our interviews...

KARKAT

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

WEIGHT: 120 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGGEN: COULD NOT BE DEFINED DUE TO POSSIBLE MISINTERPRETATION. ACCORDING TO EXPERT:"DUFFASHLAGENUROMEXICRATI SOMETHING ABOUT NOOKS CENSORED CENSORED CENSORED"

HEIGHT: 5FT 2

So Karkat, how was your reaction whenever you got hired to play a role in Earthstuck as, well, yourself?

Karkat: _BEEP_ing estatic. Wait...what was that beep about?

As a public television station, we are advised to censor any vulgar language.

Karkat: Seriously? I am going to tilt my head in confusion now. AwhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

I understand your confusion about this, but it is directed as law that we-

Karkat: _BEEP_ the law! I DEMAND MY RIGHTS AS AN OTHERWORLDLY CITIZEN! Is this part of the Earth not called America? Is this not where freedom originated from? Well _BEEP_ America! _BEEP_ this interview! And _BEEP_ YOU! DID I MENTION _BEEP_? I can go around the censors just like that! Look at this for example! QUICKLY CAMERAS! ZOOM INTO MY FACE! ...firetruck

Oh...kay...then...next question! How have you been getting along with your other acting companions? Is there anyone you turn to for advice?

Karkat: Well, like always, I have an excruciatingly fowl hatred towards absolutely everyone that I have to work with in this entire facility! But if I had to f_EEP_ing choose...wait...only the uck was censored in that word. What kind of shit is that? Oh, I can say shit but not fu_EEP_? Is that some sort of thing with you guys? Do you enjoy making zero sense? Is there some sort of diagram showing you what I can and cannot say? Screw this! No more questions, I'm out of here!

But we haven't gotten to the-

Karkat: You know what? See my fingers here? See how I am placing my middle finger down and yet all my other fingers are still up? Reverse it bitch!

Hm...he's gone...well so much for that id- OH MY GOD WHAT JUST EXPLODED IN THE OTHER ROOM? Take a look camera guy, I'm really confused here. Oh god...is that the censor guy's exploded corpse? HOW THE FUCK DID HE MANAGE THAT! Oh crap...um...er...well, looks like we're going to have to deal without the censors. So...uh...if there are any soccer moms out there, I advice you turn off your television now. Yeeeeah, sorry about thaaaaaat...so anyway, on with the show? The light bulb just fell off the ceiling behind me didn't it? Oh well! On to the next...

ERIDAN AMPORA

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS

HEIGHT: 5FT 10

WEIGHT: 130 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Nyeh!"

Eridan: Is that my glubbin' profile? My slogan is NOT simply "Nyeh!"

Sorry Mr. Ampora, but due to the amount of fan bases, aaand _octopimp's_ popularity we-

Eridan: Wwell fuck that guy! I say my slogan is anythin' but!

Ok then, what is it?

Eridan: Wwell...um...LAND DWWELLERS! I AM ERIDAN AMPORA! FUTURE RULER A THE SEAS AND YOUR FILTHY ABOVE GROUND TERRITORY! WWHEN ALL IS SET AND DONE, ALL A YOU WWILL BECOME MY SLAVES, AND BUILD TOWWERS IN ACCORDANCE TO MY FULL NAME! ERIDAN AMPHIBIUS SHIKIRA MANIRA RAY GURTRUDIOUS IVAN MA-

(This looks like it's going to take a while, so in the mean time...we'll just interview someone else)

TEREZI PYROPE

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 4IN

WEIGHT: 125 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "I would help you, but I'm blind~" (multiple cackles)

Terezi: lilaaaaaaaliuuuuhehehe

Um...Miss Pyrope, we're never going to get anywhere if you keep on licking the cameras...

Terezi: But they're so goooood! EEHEHEHE!

Sigh...

NEPETA LEIGON

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT

WEIGHT: 90 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: She gave us a confused looking kitty face for this one. As for a slogan, the only thing she said was "Purr?"

Hello Nepeta, perhaps you can answer some questions for us instead.

Nepeta: Hee hee! Ok! I love answering questions!

Alrighty, first off, how did you react when you found out you were going to play a part in Earthstuck as yourself?

Nepeta: Oh I was pawsetively enthused! I've never been on T.V before you see. So when I found out that I got the part, I was purractically leaping for joy!

Wonderful! An actual answer! This is going to be a good interview, I can already tell!

Nepeta: I'm glad you think so sturranger purrson!

Yes! I do. Anyway, next question.

Nepeta: Mmhmm?

Is there anyone that you get along with well outside of the set?

Nepeta: Well of course Equius is there to keep me company! He is supurr sweet, but sometimes it takes a while fur other trolls to notice how sweet he can actually be. Maybe if he lightened up some he would get more furiends! I hope that he does. Someone like him deserves the company.

Well how nice of you to say!

Nepeta: Hee hee, thank you!

You are PAWSetively welcome!

Nepeta: Oh I see what you did there~

Alright, question number three...do you actually have flushed feelings for Karkat? Or is that just a part of the act?

Nepeta: Wh-what? That would be p-p-p-pawsetively ridiculous! I can't like him off set! That would be silly of me! Um...c-can I be excused please?

Sure thing?

Nepeta: Thank you...

Well apparently Nepeta is busy doing something at the moment so no further questions until she gets ba-

Nepeta: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK! They can't know that I like him fur real! That would be awful!

Um...Nepeta? Your mike is still on love...

Nepeta: Wh-what? Oh no! Get it off please? EEEK!

FEFERI PEIXES

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 4

WEIGHT: 110 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Glub glub glub glub glub"

Hello Miss Peixes!

Feferi: Heh...hello!

Alrighty then, question time. First one is like the rest. How did you react whenever you found out that you got the part as yourself?

Feferi: Well, doing the auditions, I was actually kind of nervous. But whenever I thought about it for a little while, I figured, who could play a better part as me other then...well, me? So I did it! Besides, it would be kind of weird if someone else was playing a role as myself.

Good point! Second question, who do you get along with off set?

Feferi: I get along pretty well with practically everyone really. But most of the time I like to hang out with Solllux. He is so cool!

Nice answer. And thirdly, a free question. How do you keep your hair so glorious out of the ocean?

Feferi: Hmm...well, I don't really know! Maybe it's the shampoo that I use?

Really? And what is that?

Feferi: Squid Ink of course! It really makes my hair shine!

...Ew. But...whatever works I guess!

KANAYA MARYAM

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 8

WEIGHT: 130 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: With all the large words being said, we were unable to write them all down. Sorry.

Hello there Kanaya.

Kanaya: Salutations.

Us being interviewers, we have a couple questions for you.

Kanaya: Go on then.

Okie dokie...what was your reaction when you found out you got your own part in auditions?

Kanaya: Honestly, I wasn't too surprised considering the fact that I am very much myself. And in being myself, I knew exactly how I would react in certain situations.

Cool. Question number two, is there anyone you get along with off set?

Kanaya: Rose and I have become good friends. As for everyone else, I have yet to understand all of their semi delirious ways...

Nice. Thirdly, who is-

Off Screen: KABLAM! EEEEEEEE! CRASH!

Kanaya: Sigh...excuse me for a moment.

Uh...I don't know what just happened, but ok?

Off Screen: VROOM VROOM ! OH GOD THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE! Oh, yup, he's dead...

Kanaya: Thank you for being patient.

Um...why are you covered in...

Kanaya: Blood? There were a few things I had to take care of before continuing this interview. Go on.

...please don't kill me...

ARADIA MEGIDO

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 7

WEIGHT: 127 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Do your best! Even if giant boulders are attempting to run you over in the process! Just keep running and don't give up!"

Hello Miss Megido!

Aradia: Well hello.

As you know, we have a few simple questions for you. The first will be like the rest, how did you react when you found out you got the part?

Aradia: Overjoyed really. It would make life a little bit more interesting for me.

Epic. Question two. Do you get along with anyone off set? And if so, who?

Aradia: I get along very well with multiple trolls. Sollux, Tavros, Terezi, basically all my flarping friends! Not including Sollux of course, but he's still pretty cool, and very smart. As for Equius...his obsession for me...can be slightly frightening at times, but I'm able to get through it pretty well. I think he just has this avid fetish for watching me break things.

Hm. You're a lot more entertaining than I thought you would be, no offense.

Aradia: None...taken?

Well, it's just that, usually for most of Andrew Hussie's original comic, you seem pretty bored with life. That's all.

Aradia: You try being mostly dead for an entire web comic that's been going on for a good three human years! It's not fun. But don't worry, considering I'm suppose to be alive for this Earthstuck you are writing, I hope to be a lot more entertaining!

QUICKLY! EVERYONE SHIELD YOUR FACES! Wait...what was that? Nothing happened that could hurt us in any possible way? We actually got through an entire interview without someone spazzing off set? ITS A MIRACLE!

Gamzee: Yeee brooooo! Miracles all over the motherfuckin place!

Oh hey, what luck, we can interview you next Mr. Makara!

Gamzee: Sure thing my brother. Just let me pop open this wicked elixir and we can get our start up on these fly ass bitchtits!

GAMZEE MAKARA

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS

HEIGHT: 5FT 11

WEIGHT: 140 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Life is like a bottle of faygo: Miracles. That's all she wrote."

So Gamzee! First question. How did YOU react when you found out you got a part in Earthstuck?

Gamzee: When I found out I got the part, I thought it was a motherfuckin miracle! Aint no way I thought of myself as an actor, but hey, as it up and turned out, all I had to do was be my motherfuckin' self! This world is beautiful dawg, filled with motherfuckin' miracle juices all the way across skaia. It's like the entire universe was made by...this magic cat! And the cat drinks so much motherfuckin' faygo, that it just poops em all out and starts to fly! Don't know how the poptart got in there, but I'm picturing it bro!

You mean like nyan cat? It's a youtube sensation!

Gamzee: I'm not quite sure I know what you're talkin' about, but yeah, we can go with that!

Cool! Next question... who do you get along with off set?

Gamzee: I get along with motherfuckin' everybody bro! We're like one big pile of punch. The colors just swirl around and create this mixture like no other! Of course I've got my two main bros to mention though. Best friend Karkat bein' all swag and by my side! He deals with all kinds of shit sticks! And of course there's my bro Tavros! He's got all them sick beats runnin' through his motherfuckin' think pan! It's a miracle he can come up with shit like that what he does with his phantasmol poetry slammer jammers!

...I'll pretend I understood all of that, but ok! And thirdly, this one is for the fans, what do you think of people shipping you and Karkat? You and Tav?

Gamzee: I'm pretty chill with any of them ol' ships. But when it comes to my own emotional think pan, I can't see Karkat any more than just my best motherfuckin' friend ever! He is one good moirail...but any further than that and I think I may get the door slammed right in my face! Besides, I don't got any other feels for him besides one kick ass friendship. As for Tavbro, heh heh heh...I'll let you be the judge of that one. Honk. (o:

TAVROS NITRAM

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 5 (without wheelchair)

WEIGHT: 150 HUMAN POUNDS (with legs) 100 HUMAN POUNDS (without legs)

SLOGAN: "Uhhhhh...wha? Oh, right...even though I might be crippled...I can still be brave! If I wanted to...that is..."

Hello Tavros!

Tavros: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Um...Tavros? Are you ok? You don't have to look at the cameras directly. Tavros?

Tavros: ...

Um...Tav?

Tavros: Oh...uh...s-sorry...I...uh...I'm a little scared of the cameras...I guess...

Oh that's ok! Just pretend that they aren't there.

Tavros: Um...ok...I'll try...but it's kind of hard to pretend something isn't there whenever it keeps staring at me funny...

Those aren't eyes...Tavros...it's the camera lenses...

Tavros: ...huh? Oh...sorry...The camera keeps distracting me...

How do you manage being on the crew of Earthstuck whenever there are cameras there the entire time?

Tavros: There are? Oh gog...I didn't know that!

...Um...that's ok, do you mind answering some of these questions for us now?

Tavros: Sure...I guess...

Ok good. How did you react whenever you found out you got the part as yourself on Earthstuck?

Tavros: I was pretty shocked...I think. Because, I have never won anything before...at least, nothing like that.

Aww...cute! Next question! Is there anyone you get along with off set?

Tavros: Um...well, Vriska likes to pick on me a lot, but Gamzee and I are really great pals! Even though he sometimes gets a little bit...too close for comfort...

Oh yeah! I heard about that. Wasn't there something that happened where someone found you hidden in the closet with him?

Tavros: ...I don't wanna talk about it.

But you two are still bros right?

Tavros: Well of course we are! I don't know what I would do without a bro like Gamzee around to have sick rap offs with every now and again...

Very good! Thank you Tavros! On to the next!

VRISKA SERKET

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 6

WEIGHT: 123 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Aaaaaaaall the luck!"

Ok Vriska, first question. How did you react when you got the part?

Vriska: I wasn't surprised at all! Of coooooooourse I was going to get the part! I'm a Serket for gog's sake!

Is there anyone you get along with off set?

Vriska: I don't need to get along with anyone! All I know is that I find myself having the most fun picking on Tavros! I can't believe he was a decedent of the summoner, I mean geese!

Ok, last question then. Why are you such a bluh bluh bitch bluh?

Vriska: What did you say about me?

OH SHIT! WRONG CARD! WRONG CARD! What I meant to say was-

Vriska: I don't wanna hear it! Don't hold me back everyone, this BITCH, is goin' in unarmed!

Uh...hey guys. Dave here. Considering the last interviewer was kind of beaten to a fuckin' pulp, I'm gonna be taking over... just let me set up this camera and I'll get to interviewing myself. Actually, you know what? That sounds stupid, let's just move on...

SOLLUX CAPTOR

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 4 AND 1/2

WEIGHT: 113 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Why the fuck do I need a thlogan for?"

Alright then. Sollux... how did you react whenever yo... you know what? These questions are boring. I'm throwing them away.

Sollux: Um...okaaaaaay?

So about that mind honey...

Sollux: ...

What does that stuff even do to you?

Sollux: Ithn't thith thuppothe to be about Earththtuck?

Yeah, whatever, but I want to make things a little bit more entertaining, you know, for my own sake. Cause I'm a greedy ass fuck.

Sollux: ...

You gonna answer the question or what?

Sollux: It killth you! What more do you want?

Hey...

Sollux: What?

Say sassafras.

Sollux: NO. FUCKING. WAY. Am I thaying that shit.

Do it.

Sollux: NO!

I'm the reporter, that means you have to.

Sollux: Fuck you!

I'll tell the world what happened when you ate Gamzee's soper the one time...

Sollux: ...Oh you're good thrider...

Yeah, I know.

Sollux: Fine. ... . ...

Go oooon~

Sollux: Thhhhh-

Yeeeeah?

Sollux: THATHAFRATH! There! I thaid it! Are you happy now?

Good job bro. I knew you had it in you.

Sollux: I fucking dethpithe you now. You know that right?

It's what I do man.

EQUIUS ZAHAAK

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 6FT 2

WEIGHT: He broke the scale with his massive muscle mass...soooo yeah, weight is a no go

SLOGAN: "STRONG (insert verb/noun here)"

Alright...Equius...you got any honeys off set or what?

Equius: Honeys? Are we speaking of Sollux's despised golden supplement?

Uh, no. What I mean to say is, you got any babes off the set? Girlfriends? Oh yeah, gotta speak in troll terms. Man, that makes it so much less erotic. Ok, you got any possible matesprit relations?

Equius: ...I do not wish to answer your questions when they have such...extreme anticipations...please, ask another. You're starting to make me sweat.

Gross man. Ok, fine, what's your favorite thing to do when you aren't acting for Earthstuck?

Equius: Perhaps if you ask that in a more...commanding...tone, I shall be more willing to answer your question...human blood.

...Ok weird...I think I'm going to move on now, this is getting a little bit uncomfortable for me...and that's saying a lot considering how much I have to put up with every day.

Equius: As you wish...Strider...but first..._*_**_FWACK*_ **That's for making Nepeta uncomfortable during her interview...

Um...dude...the last reporter already got served. I don't think you punching them is going to make them deader than they already are at this point.

Equius: ...Oh...I see...my apologies human...I believe now you should...punish me for my...misbehavior...

Okaaaaaaaaay, about that next interview! MOVING ON!

JADE HARLEY AND JOHN EGBERT

JADE HARLEY

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 3

WEIGHT: 124 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "Everyone should be like a pile of squiddles so that they can just make friends wherever they go!"

JOHN EGBERT

AGE: 15 HUMAN YEARS OLD

HEIGHT: 5FT 5

WEIGHT: 120 HUMAN POUNDS

SLOGAN: "WHO YOU GONNA CALL? GHOST BUSTERS? Is that one too overused by this point?"

Hey guys.

Jade: Hee hee! Hi Dave!

John: Hey! What's up? Oh cool, you're doing the interviews now Dave?

Seems like it.

John: Sweeet

Jade: Isn't it though?

You know it! So I'm gonna ask you two a couple questions, is that cool?

Jade: Of course!

John: Yeah, why wouldn't it be?

Good question friend. Anyway, how are you guys enjoying playing in this Earthstuck fanfic thing?

Jade: It's pretty fun! A good break from another dimension if you ask me!

John: Yeah! A lot better than being stuck on a weird looking ship with Jade.

Jade: Are you complaining about me John?

John: Oh, no! Of course not! But, you know, it's kind of nice hanging out with other people every once in a while too.

Jade: I guess you have a point. It really IS a lot better than hanging out with you all day...

John: HEY!

Jade: Well it's true! You never clean up your part of the ship!

John: Well neither do you! I trip over plush toys all the time!

Okaaaaaaaaaaaay...this whole interview is starting to take a turn for the worse. How about we just chill for a minute and get this thing over with?

Jade: Oh yeah. Sorry Dave!

John: Yeah man, go on!

...Shit guys, now I've got nothin'...

John: Are you gonna interview your bro?

Meh, he's old news. We'll get to him another time. Besides, he's kind of busy at home. Said he had to do something with his smuppets, and god knows what that's all about...

Jade: ... Ew...

What were you thinking Jade?

Jade: Oh nothing!

...Aw man...you are sick.

Jade: Eh heh...can we cut now? Please? Something tells me I really embarrassed myself just now.

Yeah...you've got a dirty mind Jade.

John: Wha?

Nevermind John. Anyway, toon in next time for another exciting intermission episode! Have a nice day!

John: No really! What were you guys thinking?


	8. Episode 7: GDI NANNERS!

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 7

GDI NANNERS!

Every day after Dave kept his promise with Dirk, it was the same old thing. Strider brother number two had told Rose that until he figured out more information, he was going to have to keep the photographs found for a longer time. Well, a good week was passing, and his older brother still didn't tell him the needed information about this weird "other dimensional pull", or whatever one would call something like this. So the routine was this: Get up, brush teeth, open medicine cabinet, get mauled by smuppets, clean up, go to school, come home, get online, go to bed, and repeat. The only tweak in that schedule is the many attempts Dave did in order to avoid his brother's hideous plush rumped fiends. Much of this took skill, and patience. Well, Dave's patients was slowly drawing to a close!

"All right fuck faces...you want Strider? You're gettin' some motherfuckin' Strider dawgs..." He streaked the underside of his eyes with dark green war paint (which was actually some face paint he found in his closet not too long ago), adjusted his cool kid sunglasses, then tied a red piece of cloth around his blonde forehead tightly. His mission: brush his motherfuckin' without being terminated by a bunch of round smuppet ass!

He narrowed his eyes at the medicine cabinet from across the hall, then knelt down with what looked to be some kind of hand made wire gun put together with some rubber bands and a super soaker 9000. For the hook at the end of the wire, he used the broken top half of a coat hanger. It was an ingenious plan if he did say so himself! Then with just enough pressure applied to the trigger, he managed to shoot the rubber wire across the hallway and around the handle of the medicine cabinet. It was a perfect aim! Now to twist that tape measuring device just a tad so that he could open it and...YES! It was open! But wait! Something was off! There were no smuppets coming out! This was suspicious. So with every amount of bravery the boy could possibly muster, he crept towards the bathroom.

With every step, Dave could feel his own heart throb with anticipation. Did his brother finally take all of the smuppets out and hide them elsewhere? Finally, the boy turned into his doorway to face the inside of the medicine cabinet. There really wasn't anything there! This didn't stop his suspicions though. He glanced around before taking the toothpaste out, and then he closed the door to the other side where the mirror was and began to brush his teeth. Ah ha! through the mirror he could see that the shower curtains were closed on the other side, and behind that, was what appeared to be a shadow of sorts! Maybe that shadow...(he turned around to open the curtain)...WAS A PILE OF SMUPPETS! The curtain made a swooshing sound, and the only thing that was inside the bathtub, was something weird! No doubt Dave's yell of terror could be heard from outside.

Whatever these things were, they were NOT smuppets! They had weird looking faces with protruding sharp teeth and silly hats. Things in Dave's mind started to run in auto mode as these strange critters started to launch at him for an attack. He grabbed the first thing that he could reach, which was unfortunately a toilet paper roll and threw it at them with as much force that he could muster. Now all the creatures could really do was look at him funny. Hey, at least it stalled them right? Because of that, he was able to rush out the door and into the hallway.

"FUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuck!" He passed his newspaper reading brother in the kitchen and then into the next hallway.

"Shit Dave. I knew you hated my smuppets and all but fuck, they aren't all that scary are they?" Dirk stated in bewilderment. Then when he was about to muster out a quick chuckle, he saw why his brother was running so quickly! These were imps we were talking about here! Out of nowhere Dirk stood up and pulled out a Katana. Good thing he kept these shitty swords around. He was prepared for this kind of thing! Then from Dirk's room, Dave came out with another one of his older brother's swords and prepared himself to attack them. He wasn't about to back down that easy.

"I'm fighting too!" The boy spoke confidently.

"Fine then. How on earth I'm gonna write you a late note for the teachers is beyond me." Dirk said as he slashed his sword heavily upon one of the imps. It was amazing how many of them could fit in the kitchen at a time! There seemed to be no end!

"You can always be honest!" Said Dave as he too slashed at one of the crazy looking creatures.

"Oh yeah, that's gonna be fun!" Dirk teased. He was taking these things out by the dozens! "To whom it may concern..." He began while still fighting. "Sorry my brother is late for school. We were fighting some bad ass imps samurai style! HA!"

"What the fuck are these things anyway?" Dave questioned mid strike.

"Fighting now! Explanations later!"

Dirk slashed into another couple imps like he was dicing onions. And each time he did so, a piece of grist came out for every kill.

Meanwhile, Jade sat down at her first period class and pondered blankly for a moment on why Dave hadn't come to school yet.

"Tell you what Dave..." Dirk said to his brother back at the house.

"Yeah bro?"

"We'll make this into a game. Whoever can collect the most of these diamond things you see here, wins. Got it?"

"Got it!"

They continued to fight. Making it into a game was a good idea, this way Dave would have more motivation to fight, and less motivation to wonder what the heck was going on to begin with! It was pretty fun, even though it was rather hard to keep score considering the grist simply digitalized whenever collected. Dirk simply told Dave not to worry about that, and that he knew how to keep track in the end.

A good hour passed until finally, all of the imps were vanquished! Dirk collapsed back into the closest comfy chair he could find to catch his breath, while Dave was panting with his hands grasped against his knees.

"That...was fucking epic..." The boy breathed.

"Glad it made your day more entertaining Dave..." Dirk sighed.

"So..." Dave said with juice box in hand. It didn't take him long to completely catch his breath. His brother however, seemed to be "getting old". "...Now will you tell me what's up with those imp things?"

"Phew...no lil bro. You have to get to school." Dirk replied dryly.

"Oh come on! After all this shit you're still not going to tell me what's up?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"Well fuck you too..."

"Get packing Dave. Here's your note for school, I told them that your alarm wasn't working right. They should accept that right?"

"Bro, I know why your name is Dirk now."

"Oh really, and why is that?"

Dave put his back pack on and got ready to walk out of the apartment.

"Cause you're a dick!" And with that, he walked off. It didn't really hurt his brother's feelings though. The only thing that the guy could care about at this point was how the hell he was going to clean the place up!

By the time Dave got to school, it was already mid second period. This was the class he had with the two foreign kids, Gamzee and Tavros. They were whispering to each other near the back of the room.

"Hey bro, guess what?" The juggalo looking boy said to Tavros softly.

"What is it Gamzee?"

"I brought somethin' to school today, but you can't tell no one, got it?"

"I guess I can agree to that...what is it?"

Makara carefully lifted his back pack from the underside of his chair and unzipped it. Inside, there were multiple objects. Old crumpled up paper, a bag of chips, some faygo, and a few pencils here and there, but sitting on top of all that was not just anything else. It was Nanners, the now growling imp the trolls had caught those few nights before. Tavros quickly covered his mouth to hopefully muffle his surprised yelp.

Gamzee put his finger to his mouth.

"Shhh! You'll tell no one right? Not a soul? At least, not until lunch time, right?"

Tavros nodded with his hands still clasped around his mouth, and Makara re-zipped the bag, still leaving some space though for the imp to breath with.

"Why did you bring him here Gamzee?" Whispered the crippled Nitram.

"Well he just looked so upset being left at the cave by all by himself for another day, so I couldn't motherfuckin' resist."

"Oh dear..." Tavros whispered.

"Eh heh heh hem!" The teacher hit her ruler on the Makara boy's desk to get his attention.

"Are you two having fun conversing?" She asked with one hand on her hip.

"Sure thing teach. We is havin' _such_ a blast in your class room right here. Honk honk honk!" Gamzee replied.

Tavros tugged on his shirt.

"Um...Gamzee..." He whispered. Gamzee didn't reply.

"Look, Makara. I don't care what you think you are with your creepy clown make up and what not, but speaking during my class is not something that I can simply tolerate!" The teacher continued.

"Gamzee..." Tavros repeated. Again, Gamzee said nothing back, but he did however notice what Tavros was talking about. The imp was attempting to unzip his back pack, so the little guys hands were starting to stick out some. Noting this, Gamzee slid the bag back underneath his chair with his foot. Unfortunately, the teacher was rather sharp.

"Are you hiding something from me young man? You know very well that drugs are not aloud on school property.

"No man, I don't even know what you're talking about!" Makara said as coolly as he could.

Tavros twitched some. Turns out the imp managed to pop its head out of the bag and scamper out slightly. Luckily Gamzee noticed this and faked loosing his balance in his chair to snatch the creature and stuff it into his shirt. It crawled around and into his pants, causing the carnival troll to shoot back up onto his feet and do a crazy looking dance.

"T-teacher! I gotta go to the little troll's room! D-d-d-don't be lookin' round for me! I'll be back! Don't worry!"

"Um...me too!" Nitram yelped.

With that, Tavros snatched the hall pass off the chalk bored and jutted out the room after Gamzee in his wheelchair like there was no fuckin' tomorrow! The entire class seemed stunned, along with the teacher.

"Do you students not have any control? Ugh...they're lucky they're new..." Then with that, the woman turned and walked to the front of the class room yet again to teach.

"Little trolls room huh?..." Dave whispered to himself in the final calm. "weird..."

"That was so close Gamzee! I was so scared the teacher was going to kill us or something!" Tavros said as they finally made it into the bathroom.

"Me too bro! Now, can you help a brother out and get this thing out of my pants! He's havin' a party down there!" Gamzee replied.

"Uhhh..."

"Oh, never mind, he's out." Makara said as Nanners scampered out from the bottom of his pant sleeve. Tavros managed to bend around his wheels and scoop it up.

"I'm not sure if bringing Nanners to high school was such a good idea Gamzee..." He said quietly. The imp simply sat down on the boy's lap and began chewing on a pencil that he apparently got from Gamzee's bag.

"Guess not huh bro?" Makara sighed. "Aw man...what am I suppose to do now?"

"Well...I guess we can't return him to the cave while we're here...can we?"

"Nah...best friend would hate us for that..."

"You mean he doesn't already hate us to begin with...?"

"No bro can truly hate motherfucker. Hate is like a miracle drainer. All that negativity swirlin' up like it's some kind of hatred soup...you get what I'm sayin' bro? Karkat doesn't hate us! He's just expressin' himself. Ya dig?" Gamzee smiled.

"I guess...maybe..."

"I'm motherfuckin' glad! Now lets see what we can do about you Nanners...oh shit...where'd he go?"

Tavros looked down at his lap where Nanners use to be, and the imp was very much missing!

"Oh well I guess." Gamzee said calmly.

"Wh-wha? We can't leave him out there! He could get us into trouble!" Tavros exclaimed. Gamzee only scratched his head and put his arm around Tavros's shoulder.

"Brother, let me tell you about the birds and the bees...whenever a wriggler is born, it has to move away from mother grub someday...every motherfuckin' trolls has to learn to adapt and fight its own fight...therefore-"

"Um, excuse me, but that's not the point! If it's found around in the school, it'll blow our cover as trolls! That's why we have to get him back..."

Gamzee let go.

"Motherfucker...you have a point...let's roll! No pun intended of course..." With that, the Makara trotted out of the bathroom and began to look around.

"W-wait! What about class?" Tavros shouted after him.

"You go back bro, I've got an imp to find!" Gamzee replied. His voice trailed off as he furthered into the hallway.

"Oh gog..." The Nitram sighed. He then wheeled out.

What they didn't know was that they weren't the only ones in the bathroom, and sitting inside one of the stalls, was a very confused John Egbert.

Now, picture with me if you will, a very humorous chase scene between Gamzee and Nanners with ironic circus themed background music.

Once you've had enough of that, we are moving on!

Gamzee did not catch the imp. It seemed like no matter how many traps he set up, it was an impossibility. How he dodged the teachers lurking in the hallway is questionable. Either way in the end he found himself in a very odd position against the wall in a heap.

Sooner or later, everyone's favorite part of the day arrived. Lunch. And like always, the individuals sat at their tables and chatted away. Karkat, was not an amused troll.

"YOU DID WHAT?" He shouted at Gamzee from the other side of the lunch table.

"I couldn't help it bro! He was just so motherfuckin' adorable...and I could not resist his ey-"

"NO! NO EXCUSES! YOU CAN'T RELEASE SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN A PUBLIC HUMAN FACILITY!" The disguised troll realized how loud he was being once he looked around and saw that everyone in the cafeteria was starring at him, so he sat down and tried to speak with a calmer tone. "It's completely uncalled for!"

"I know best friend...but...I'll make it up to you somehow!" Replied the slightly nervous Gamzee.

"Wow. Talk about a screw up. I mean really, how bad can you get?" Vriska, who was also sitting at the table, taunted lightly.

"I wouldn't up and talk like that to me if I were you motherfucker..." Makara mumbled under his breath.

"What did you say Gamzee? I didn't quite hear you. Your smelly faygo breath was too thick for me to concentrate!" The spider girl teased. Gamzee glared at her slightly, but didn't say much back considering he was kind of afraid of her possible reaction.

"...honk..." He stated mildly.

"What the fuck Vriska? You know what, just keep your comments to yourself! I don't fucking give a shit what your problem is anymore! Just, back the fuck off!" Karkat ranted.

"Fine! I was just teasing, god. Everyone's so sensitive!" She said before rolling her eyes. Karkat sighed.

"Anyway...we have to get this fucking imp under control! Otherwise, we're gonna have to use it for grist Gamzee."

"No bro, you can't do that! Nanners is my buddy!" Argued the indigo blood.

"All right all right, keep your fucking shirt on! I'll give you until the end of the day to catch it, and if you can't do that, well, you know the fucking consequences."

"Aw don't worry best friend, I won't let a brother down!"

"Good..."

"Excuse me you two..." Kanaya interrupted. "But isn't that the so called 'Nanners' over yonder?" She pointed to a back pack strapped over an unsuspecting student's left shoulder. Karkat and Gamzee's eyes widened.

"Oh shit! You're right!" Karkat stated in surprise. "Gog damn it...how are we going to get it back without anyone noticing?"

"I have a suggestion!" Terezi smiled with a toothy grin.

"Oh really?" Karkat said. "And what's that?"

The girl got up, her grin never leaving her face, and then with her right hand, she picked up a wad of mashed potatoes from Gamzee's tray.

"Oh god...Terezi...no! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE PYROPE OR SO HELP ME-" Too late. She threw the wad right at Karkat's head, and for a blind chick, she had some pretty good aim. Vantas was speechless.

"HA HA! Now that's what I'm talking about!" Vriska laughed. She wasn't too hesitant to join in. From her there flew a ham sandwich right at Eridan's hair.

"YOU GLUBBIN IDIOT! DO YOU KNOWW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO STYLE MY HAIR THIS PERFECTLY! OH I WWILL OWWN YOU!" The sea dweller threw some of his food at Vriska, but missed and instead hit Equius.

"I...deserved that..." Was all he said.

"Hee hee! Silly Equius! You're supposed to fight back! Like this, see?" Nepeta smiled. Sooner or later the entire table was having a food fight! It was absolute mayhem.

The four human friends watched the foreign students throwing food at each other like crazy, so it didn't take them long to get curious.

"What in god's name are they doing now?" Rose questioned.

"I dunno, but it sure looks like they're having fun!" Jade smiled.

"Yeah!" John grinned. "I've always wanted to be a part of a food fight!"

"Then why don't you join in bro?" Suggested Dave.

"I dunno Dave...maybe because I don't want to get in trouble?"

"Screw the rules! I say let's play!" Harley exclaimed, and with that, she scooped up some of her own mashed potatoes and chucked it at John's face!

"JADE! This is my favorite shirt!"

"Hee hee! Sorry, guess I got excited!" She grinned.

"Oh you are going down!"

In no way was John going to back down that easy! So he got his milk and poured it on top of Jade's head. Her mouth was wide open!

"So immature..." Sighed Rose. "But...so tempting...oh what the heck!" With that, Rose smiled and leaped up on the table and shouted. "FOOD FIGHT EVERYONE!"

And that's when the chaos began. Lunch trays were flying everywhere! Lunch LADIES were flying everywhere! Tables were being used as defense forts! Karkat was forgetting about the imp!

"KK! THE IMP! THERE IT GOETH!" Sollux pointed in the direction of the strange looking mini monster who was also trying to dodge around the mayhem.

"OH FUCK! RIGHT!"

To be honest, Karkat thought that this food fight thing was a pretty good idea. At least it was distracting! In the mess he managed to crawl along the floor and reach for Nanners, but not soon enough. The thing was on high speed as it leaped up through the air and onto a random lunch table.

"AC leaps gracefully into the heavens! She shall soon have her revenge on the rat that caused her meowrail to beat himself silly!" Nepeta said before leaping off of another near by table, but because of some slippery mustard all over the table she ended up sliding right into the wall and making herself dizzy.

"Nepeta!" Equius ran to her side then knelt down for the kitten girl to climb on. Once she was able to do that, he had an idea. "Get on my shoulders...I shall pass you your ammo." He handed her a bow and arrow with the arrow head removed, then a bag of marshmallows. "Now then, place the marshmallows onto the arrow stick and fire!"

"Ooooh! I like where this is going Equius!" The girl smiled. "Now then. RIDE MY HOOF BEAST! RIDE!"

They shot a few times at the imp and missed several shots because of its speed. However some shots were pretty lucky, and they were able to get it a few times in the back. It was at least slowing the thing down.

"Um...I'm not sure if I like this idea much Terezi!" Tavros said while hiding behind a fallen table.

"Hee hee hee! Don't worry Tavros! This will be fun!" The blind girl peeked out from the side of the table and leaped out, throwing (and sometimes licking) all the red jello she could find!

From afar Dave managed to spot the imp! This was not good.

"Ho shit! Not here too!" He mentioned while hiding under one of the tables. He then managed to snatch a large soup spoon from the cafeteria's kitchen window near by and run towards the thing, yet at the same time dodging as much food that he could. Gamzee jumped in front of him.

"You haven't seen nothin bro!" He grinned. Dave jumped back in surprise as he was suddenly being attacked by flying baloney slices from the 'juggalo's' hand!

_"You've gotta be kidding me!"_ Strider thought to himself as he was being meat mauled. He flailed his spoon around as defense.

"WILL SOMEONE GET THE FUCKING IMP ALREADY?" Karkat shouted in the noise. At this point he was too far from the thing to reach it.

"Already on it!" Aradia nodded. Out of nowhere she had pulled out some sort of _Indiana Jones_ hat and placed it on top of her head. Then in her hand, was a long rope that she swirled around above her head and flung towards the naughty creature. IT WAS A CATCH!

"Yes!" She said as she happily ran towards it and picked it up. "I got it Karkat!"

"Good fucking job! Now go return it to the cave or something while you still have time!" Vantas shouted as he was attempting to hide himself from the flying food objects but failing horribly. Aradia nodded, then rushed off to do as she was told!

The food fight went on till next period.

After all was set and done, the entire lunch period was forced to clean up every inch of the cafeteria, no complaints. Jade sighed, some salad was stuck in her hair, but boy did she have a blast, her AND her friends. Dave seemed quieter than normal though, and she soon took notice.

"Hey Dave, what's up?" She asked with her usual giggly smile. They were cleaning the underside of a flipped table together.

"Did you happen to see anything strange going on when the food fight was taking place?" He asked quietly.

"I think I had meat vision the entire time because of how much got onto my glasses in the middle of it all." Joked Jade. "So not really."

"Mm..." Was all the Strider boy's response.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious." Dave shrugged.

"That was kind of fun!" Feferi, who was also fighting before, said to Eridan with a smile. These two were scrubbing the walls.

"I didn't think so." Ampora replied. "My scarf is gonna stain for shore!"

"Hee hee! You're such a girl."

Eridan blushed and looked away pouting.

"Am not. Look...evven noww evveryone is starrin' at me..." He was talking about a group of students looking at him from not to far away. They were wearing rich looking clothes, and seemed very unhappy about being there. Eventually, one of the girls got up and walked towards Eridan with a strange glint in their eyes.

"Hello there new kid~" She said to Ampora with a smile.

"Wwhat do you wwant?" Eridan mumbled.

"I was just looking at your scarf and well, it looks so expensive! Too bad it got ruined like that. I just got in school today~ So don't worry, I'm a little new myself." The stranger girl said as she gently twirled the scarf around in her palm. Eridan noticed that she was very beautiful, and Feferi only glared.

"Leave him alone." The Peixes frowned.

"Awww~ How cute! Little curly locks is standing up for her boyfriend." The older girl smiled. Her eyes then shifted back to Eridan, who was slowly being drawn in by the girl's beauty. He gulped loudly. "I'm Isabella ~ If you want, you can call me later. Here's my number." Her face was very close to his, and this was causing Feferi's face to burn pink with anger. Isabella sneaked Eridan a piece of paper with her phone number on it, then walked away. She was rich, that was for sure.

"She was absolutely..." Ampora started in a daze.

"Repulsive..." Feferi finished.

"Ah! I wwas not gonna say that! Fef, you're just jealous I got someone that attractive to hint matespritship with me!" The boy grinned.

"Don't let it get to your head Eri..." Feferi sighed as she continued to clean the walls.

"So how did it go?" Another girl asked Isabella as she returned to her original seating.

"Simply...wonderful." The young woman smiled. "Exactly as planned."


	9. Episode 8: THE GLORIOUS SUPER MARKET

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 8

THE GLORIOUS SUPER MARKET

When Dave got back home he was surprised to find that his brother was sitting quite relaxed on the comfy chair and reading a few randomly selected Manga books. Oddly, the house was perfectly clean as though nothing had happened that morning.

"Dude. Bro. How did you managed to clean the place up so fast?" The blond boy asked as he put away his backpack. His brother didn't even bother a glance.

"I don't know what you're talking about Dave." He said simply after turning another page.

"So you're gonna pull one of these huh? Act like nothing happened? Like It'll magically vanish from my mind? You know, considering I'm still kind of pooped from this morning, that plan of yours isn't really going to work. Now answer the god damned question."

Dirk glanced up at Dave through the corner of his eyes.

"Forceful much?"

Dave wasn't having it and crossed his arms. His brother chuckled some.

"Man, you're acting like mom use to do whenever I wouldn't do my chores right away..." He sighed. "Ok, I'll tell you."

"That's what I thought."

"Ok, you really wanna know how I cleaned this place up?" Dirk asked as he stretched from his chair. He started to walk towards the closet. "Well as it turns out, I won our little game. Got the most grist so, I created something out of what was collected. He opened the door and out pranced a cool looking robot Rainbow Dash thing.

"...Really?" Twitched Dave.

"Yup. I call her the 'Robo Dash over 9000'. Emphasis on the 'over' part of the name."

"Dirk...no Dirk...bad Dirk...Worst Dirk..." Continued the younger of the brothers.

"You're underestimating this genius Dave, check it out some." Dirk turned towards the mlp monstrosity and crossed his arms over his chest. "Robo Dash, clean up the place some, you know, a little dusting here and there."

_"Yes pimp daddy Dirk dog G" _The robot replied.

"You're kidding right?" Dave teased dryly. His brother shrugged.

"Eh, why not?"

After their little mini argument, Robo Dash went to work. The little thing was so quick, that it was almost invisible when it dusted the walls, did the dishes about three times, cleaned Dave's room, vacuumed the floor, watered the garden, adjusted the light bulbs, fluffed all the pillows, AND made an entire turkey dinner all in a matter of five seconds. Dave looked pretty damn shocked.

"bAaA!" The thing twitched with its front hooves on the kitchen table.

"Sooo, what do you think?" Dirk smiled.

"Pretty fuckin' sweet! But why does it sound like a sheep?"

"Hey! Bro! ...Not everyone is perfect dawg."

"So tell me again how you made it? Grist right?" Dave asked as he sat down at the table and helped himself to a leg of turkey.

"Yup. Didn't take much, just had to alchemise one of my pony figures with a vacuum cleaner and it was all good."

"Sweet. So I can do the same thing with the grist I collected right?" Dave said before taking a bite.

"Yeah, uh, no. I won, remember? So I used up your points too."

"You fucking...dick." The younger brother twitched.

"Silly Dave, my name's Dirk, don't you remember?"

Dave threw a bread bun at his bro's face as a "response". Dirk only laughed and bit into it like it was nothing, causing Dave to roll his eyes and sigh.

"Bro, you know I'm gonna have to learn more at this rate, right? I mean, my friends are already starting to get suspicious when I told them I had to keep those photos for a longer time and-"

"Photos?" Dirk interrupted."What photos?"

"Shit..." Dave gritted his teeth together once he realized his mistake.

"Dave? Tell me." His brother pestered.

"Fine..." The young Strider began to explain. "Rose found a bunch of pictures in her basement of her mom in two separate time lines, that and a whole bunch of other crap; It's how I managed to activate your machine in the first place...but you know, at least I kept your promise about not telling anyone, right?"

"Oh, you're sly little brother. Let me see them." Dirk commanded. Dave sighed, reluctant at first, but he pulled them out of his pocket anyway. The older Strider brother picked them up.

"Hm...well you discovered the I.D I see...and as for these other ones...did you develop them too?"

"Yeah, but I didn't find anything interesting." Dave replied with a shrug.

"You didn't look hard enough. Let me show you something..." With that, Dirk got up and lead his brother into his room, then sat down at his computer. Dave looked over him questioningly.

"Whatchya doin' bro?" The boy asked as though he was a little kid again.

"Shoosh. Give me a sec." Dirk replied. Then with one of the photographs, he managed to scan it with a weird program installed inside of his computer. It was a lot like one of those spy scanners that you see in the movies. The photographs appeared on screen, and Dirk enhanced them by zooming in and clearing up the pictures. He squinted at it observantly. "Aw man..." The older brother whispered in shock.

"What?" Said Dave.

"There's something similar in each of these pics. Can you guess what it is?" His bro answered.

"They were all taken with a potato?" Dave teased.

"Well besides that."

"Hmm..." Dave examined the pictures again. "Nope, I've got nothin'."

Dirk huffed.

"Ok look...here in the first picture, you see how there's this weird light in the corner? That's not camera glare. Here, I'll zoom in for ya." Upon further zoom of this picture there appeared to be something inside the light. It was the same for all the other pictures too.

"It looks like a person's in there..." Dave said.

"Yeah...but I wonder who." His brother agreed.

"Beats me."

"Hey, I'm gonna keep researching these photos for a while ok? Something tells me there's more to them than just a weird floating body in a blob of light."

"Fine by me! Just don't destroy them or nothin' because if you do, I'm getting hell from Roxy."

"It's all good little brother. I know exactly what I'm doing."

Later that same evening, the trolls were eating what food supply they were given by Dirk only a week before. They were starting to run out, but still had enough for a meal that night.

"Hey guyth..." Sollux, who had been on his computer for the past few hours, scratched his chin in deep thought. "I think I figured thomething out."

"Ooh really Sollux?" Feferi put her arms around the four horned boy's neck to look over his shoulder. He didn't seem to care too much, besides the fact that he was weirded out by her sudden invasion of personal space.

"Um...yeah...turnth out, we may be able to convert our boon dollarth into human thpending money."

"You can do that?" Terezi, who was also listening in, asked with a look of intrigue on her smiling troll face.

"Theemth tho." Sollux paused for a moment to raise his voice. "Doeth anyone have a boon buck I could uthe for thith exthperiment?"

"Sure bro!" Gamzeee smiled. "I've got your back." He handed him a couple hundred Alternian boon dollars with a smile.

"Ok, cool. Now all I have to do ith thcan it aaaand..." The computer made a dinging noise. "Done! Boon buck thucthethfully tranthferred! And we have...two human dollarth...weird conversion."

"It's a wonderful idea Sollux!" Aradia complemented. "But...wouldn't this be considered counterfeit money?"

"Nah." The Captor replied. "We're technically uthing our own money, and they do that all the time on Earth becauth for thome reathon in different countrieth they have different typeth of thpending money."

"Hm...I guess that makes sense then." Megedo shrugged.

"Tho I'm guething that for every hundred boon buckth we have, it'll only convert into one human dollar."

"Then I guess _we're_ all set!" Karkat, who was also paying attention while eating a sandwich said with rolled eyes.

"We should most definitely go shopping for new clothes and materiel!" Kanaya stated. "I have gotten several questioning comments about my similar clothing styles, and have been resorting to tweaking my own outfit using what I have, which isn't very much mind you."

"Clothing can wait!" Karkat said. "Let's just get what we need!"

"But I_ do_ need clothes!" Kanaya complained. "One cannot simply adapt to the constantly changing earth style weather!"

"FINE FINE FINE! Whatever. We'll get clothes tomorrow! But right now we have to think of other shit that we need! You know, like food and personal hygiene supplies!" Karkat said. "Sollux, are there any food selling market places near by that we can maybe walk to?"

"Already on it KK." Sollux replied. "There. Ok, one ith jutht over the hill. It should be pretty eathy to get there conthidering ith lacking dithtence on the map."

"Ok good." Replied Vantas. "So who all is coming with me?"

"If we are not buying clothing, then you can count me out." Kanaya said. "I'll stay behind and keep an eye on the cave."

"That's not what I asked Kanaya! I don't care if you stay or come. I just want to know who wants to go with me because I'm sure as fuck not going alone!"

Nepeta raised her hand and flailed it about happily.

"I'll go!" She said with an excited smile. Equius nodded.

"If Nepeta is going, then I shall as well."

"Ok..." Karkat said. "Anyone else?"

Terezi grinned.

"I'll go!" She said with her enthusiastic chortle.

"Maybe I should restate the question!" Karkat groaned. "Anyone SANE want to come with me? Hm. Funny. That excludes everyone but maybe Sollux and Aradia! You know what, nevermind, you can come Terezi, just don't lick anything red that you find!"

"Hee hee, I won't be making any promises!" Smiled Pyrope.

"I should come too conthidering how much rethearch I've been doing on the human market place." Sollux said. "That and I have the directionth."

"Fine by me." Karkat sighed. "Anyone else, last minute?"

"I'll go best friend. I've been runnin' low on faygo for **so** long now..." Gamzee replied.

"Whatever, just behave ok?" The Vantas warned. "The rest of you keep a watch on the cave, and please don't set fire to the place! Tavros, that means you!"

Tavros put his hands behind his back and pouted.

"Ok, we'll be back!"

"Oh yeah..." Sollux started. "Before we go, I have thomething for everyone. It'll jutht be a sec ok KK?"

"Ok, but hurry the fuck up."

Sollux ran into a slightly separate tunnel in the cave , then came back out with a box and placed it on the ground.

"Inthide there should be a watch for everyone. The one that belongth to you would be the one that hath your zodiac thign on it. With thethe, you will have the ability to change yourself into a human or troll at will. For human, turn the little thmiley fathe knob, like tho." One the side of the Gemini watch was the knob Sollux had so described. He turned it, then like he said, it transformed him into his human form.

"Then to change back," He continued. "turn the troll fathe knob which is conveniently plathed on the other thide." He pointed to that knob, not using it considering he needed his human form to go to the market place to begin with. "Doeth everyone underthtand?"

The other trolls nodded.

"Then go ahead and take your watch from the box. Don't take the wrong watches though."

"Why not?" Vriska asked with a grin.

"Becauthe one: that would be thtupid, and two: you may revert to a different blood's form, changing not only your blood color, but your physical appearance with it." The Captor explained.

"Ha! In that case..." Vriska snatched the Aquarius watch and turned the troll knob. Her appearance then digitalized into a troll with purple tinted skin and a streak like a skunk's across the midsection of her hair. Along with that, her horns changed into ones in the shape of lightning bolts. Other than that she looked pretty much the same.

"Buaha! I'm ERIDAN! I'm forewa ALOOONE! I act like I'm the best weh when in reality I'm just an insecure sea monkey with no actual point in life but to...wwait...wwait's happenin? Wwhy do I actually feel like nobody lovves me? And wwhy do I havve this sudden urge to kill all land dwwellers? LIFE IS POINTLESS! WWAAAAAAAAAA!"

Eridan grinned.

"Hurts, doesn't it Vvris?" He teased.

Sollux snatched the watch from her and gave it to Ampora, then continued on to glare at Vriska with a smile.

"What have we learned?" He joked.

"OH SHUT UP BEE BOY!" Vriska replied as she stomped over to get her own watch.

"Heh. Well, I'm pretty sure I'm ready to go now KK." Smiled Sollux. Karkat nodded, turning on his own human form when he was handed the watch, and they began their journey into the great unknown: THE SUPER MARKET!

When the six got there, they were surprised to see all the colors the humans used just to advertise a couple of food products. And oh the selection! It was as though they stepped in front of a magic sanctuary of thingamabobs and colordoodles everywhere! Gamzee's eyes were starting to dilate.

"Miracleeeeeeeeeeeeees~" His voice wavered. And they weren't even inside yet!

"Ugh, come on Gamzee! Let's get moving already!" Karkat took Makara by the hand and began to drag him forward and into the so called "brilliance" that was the market place. It was one of those spinney doors, so Vantas was quite confused at first when he went around only to find out that he was going in a complete circle and ended up outside again! "What kind of shit?" He twitched in angry surprise.

Nepeta giggled.

"Hee hee! I think you were suppose to stop Karkitty!" She smiled while leading Equius inside.

Sollux put his hand on Karkat's back and turned him and Gamzee around.

"Coooome on KK." He sighed. Terezi was simply having a blast going around a few times before actually catching up and entering the building.

"Ok, lets partner up." Said Karkat. "Me and Sollux will look for food in the meat section. Gamzee, and Terezi, you two can find us drinks, and Eqius and Nepeta...here's a list of other suggested shit to buy." He gave them a peice of paper with the so called "shit" Karkat had briefly described to them.

"We shall not neglect any of the suggested materials Karkat." Equius said with a nod.

"Yeah! You can count on us Karkitty!" Nepeta said while doing a cute captain's sollute to the slightly taller Vantas boy.

"And we'll get those drinks you were talking about!" Terezi chuckled.

"Sure thing bro." Gamzee said, still slightly dazed from the surrounding colors. "What ever Terezi just said is cool with me!"

"Yeah yeah, just don't screw up ok? My goal is to spend as less time as possible in this place. It's so weird and colorful..." Karkat replied. "Now then, split up!"

"YES SIR!" The groups all said at once. Then after that, they did as they were told and rushed off into their assigned areas of the store.

"Are you sure that was a good idea to pair them off like that KK?" Sollux asked dryly.

"I'm putting my...'_trust_' in them that they can do this. However I'm probably wrong AGAIN, and this will all end up in blood and tears anyway." The red blood huffed. "Let's just get this shopping thing over with."

"Alright...whatever you say KK." Sollux shrugged. He then turned and went towards the meat section of the shop.

"So Equius!" Nepeta said happily while on the blue blood's shoulders. "What's first on our list?"

"It says...'crackers'..." He replied.

"Oh boy! I love crackers! Ok, to the cracker isle! Trot my noble steed trot!" The kitten troll grinned. Equius sighed, then headed towards the cracker isle with a slightly lowered head.

Meanwhile, Terezi and Gamzee were looking for drinks. Terezi sniffed the air.

"Oooh! Hey Gamze, I'm going to look in this isle! I smell something sweet and red! You can look in the section next to it!" She smiled.

"Alright bro. I'm on it!" The Makara boy agreed. Inside the isle, he was looking at a box filled with pop bottles and the like while scratching his chin to think. "Hmmm..." He squinted. A plopping sound and a roll was then heard as something lightly tapped the side of his foot. He looked down.

"What a miracle!" He grinned then picked it up. "It's like this Faygo bottle had a mind of its own and decided to say hello! Where did you come from mini bro?" Gamzee turned around and his eyes widened. There in front of him was a whole shelf FILLED to the BRIM with different faygo flavors and assortions! It was MIRACULOUS! So miraculous in fact that a single tear dripped from his eyes! Gamzee fell on his knees.

"Sweet mirthful messiahs! I am not worthy of such...such miracles! It's a motherfuckin' sign dawg!" It was after he said this that he started to sob like a wriggler just getting out of its pupa stage!

From the other isle, Terezi heard the clown boy sob, and she rushed to him with a pile of red huggies in her arms.

"What's wrong Gamzee? Are you ok?" She asked with a hint of concern in her face. Makara looked up at her with glassy eyes and began his reply.

"It's...so...beautiful! SNORT! WAAAAAA BOO HOO HOO! We've gotta buy em all bro! We've gotta buy em all!"

Terezi sighed.

"How about we start with one flavor each?"

"SNIFF! That sounds good bro! That sounds good..."

"You ok?"

"Yeah...yeah...I'll be fine sis...SNIFF...I'll be fine."

Outside the store, Jade and her grandfather were entering the building. (And yes, I know he's suppose to be dead and all, but I just couldn't resist!)

"Ok Grandpa Jake...let's get those groceries you keep on talking about!" The girl said, happy like always.

"Don't forget about the skull candies Jade!" Her somewhat insane grandfather mentioned underneath his mustache.

"Yes Grandpa."

"Bitches love skull candies!"

"Whatever you say Grandpa."

When they got inside, Jade was surprised to see Karkat and Sollux looking around in the meat section.

"Oh hey! Those two are a couple of the foreign students from school! How neat!" The girl smiled. Her grandfather narrowed his eyes.

"Bloody trolls..." He muttered softly.

"What was that Grandpa?"

"Nothing dear. I was just admiring the scenery. I love scenery!"

"Um...ok? Well, I'm going to go say hi to them. Is that alright with you?"

"They are watching us Jade. Reading our every word. CAN YOU SEE THEM JADEY GAL? CAN YOU SEE THEM?"

"Er...no?"

"I do."

"Oh...kay...then...well, I'll be right back!"

"You do that Jade. I have much better things to do. ADVENTURE! Zzzzzzzzzzzz..."

Jade ran up to the two happily and tapped Karkat on the shoulder. He turned around with a look of surprise on his face.

"Fuck! Where did you come from?" He said in angry confusion.

"Well, me and my grandpa came in to do some grocery shopping and I decided to say hi to you both considering our last introduction was sort of...well...not a good one." The girl said while scratching the back of her head.

"Ok fine. Hi. Now go away."

"Oh come on! You must have a better introduction than that! Like this, see? I'm Jade Harley!" She put out her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you!"

"What the fuck are you doing with your hand?" Karkat asked in befuddlement. Sollux, who was next to him, rolled his eyes.

"She wants you to shake her hand KK." He said to him with a sigh. "It's how people great eachother here. Look..." He grabbed the girls hand and shook it up and down. "See?"

"Oh my gog Sollux that's disgusting! You can't do that in public!" Karkat complained.

"KK, it's perfectly fine. They do thith all the time! It'th a tradition!"

Karkat shivered.

"It's nasty is what it is!"

"Well I don't see anything wrong with it!" Jade intervened. "I wash my hands every day! They're clean, I promise!"

"Humans are sick!" Karkat said with rolled eyes.

"PEOPLE!" Sollux said. "He meanth 'people' are thick. Right KK?"

"Whatever..." Replied the angry teen.

"So what are you guys doing up here anyway?" Jade asked. "Just grocery shopping? Where around here do you live? Do you live near by?" She started to ramble off different questions that came to her head, and the two started to twitch in trying to come up with answers right on the spot.

"Um..." Karkat replied.

"We don't live too far away, just up the hill." Said Sollux calmly. "And yeth, we're grothery shopping."

"Wait, so you two live together? Are you related?" Jade asked, obviously interested in who they were at this point.

"Er...Weeeee...what the fuck is related?" Karkat tried to answer. He was saved by the bell though whenever Equius came up to the three, this time without Nepeta on top his shoulders.

"Equius! Are you done already?" Karkat said in surprise.

"Not exactly..." Replied the blue blood. "Nepeta got...distracted..."

The girl was seen not too far away attempting to ride on one of the scanning tables with a very confused cashier staring at her the entire time.

"WEEEEEEE!"

"Oh shit...NEPETA! AS YOUR LEADER I COMMAND YOU TO STOP THAT!" Karkat said as he ran towards the check out line.

"Wow...you guys sure are different." Commented Jade. "Is she your little sister or something Equius?"

"No..." The strong troll replied. "She is however, my moira-"

"BETHT FRIEND!" Sollux interrupted.

"Best friend?" Equius questioned.

"Oh yeah! You know! You two have been betht friendth thenthe childhood! You remember right?" The lisping boy was starting to work up a sweat just because of how many things he had to do in order to cover up their troll terms.

"Low blood...I do not understand...why would-"

Sollux grabbed Equius by the collar of his shirt and glared.

"Do NOT thcrew thith up for me thweaty! I'm trying my damnedest just to cover up for you guyth tho you better fucking deal with it!" The boy whispered loudly. When he let go, it was a wonder how Equius hadn't literally liquefied with how much sweat he was building up at this point.

"Something wrong you two?" Jade asked with her head tilted in curiosity.

"It'th fine! We're fine!" Sollux twitched. "Now if you'll pleathe exthcuthe uth, we have thome shopping to do!"

"Um...ok! Nice meeting you guys!"

Sollux flapped his hand about in response to the girl as they walked away, and Jade simply shrugged then went back to her sleeping grandfather.

"That was weird..." She said to herself while still eyeing them in the distance. Her grandfather woke up.

"HUSSIE! He loved Rufio you know."

"Um...ok Grandpa...let's just...continue shopping, ok?"

After a long while of gathering Nepeta back to shop and pulling Gamzee away from the faygo isle, the six trolls were finally finished buying their needed supplies! Sollux managed to transfer their boon dollars into earth money, and they were on their way back to the cave! It was a close one indeed! But the trouble was only getting started, because when they got back, the place was filled to the brim with imps!


	10. Episode 9: Feelings of Black and Flush

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 9

FEELINGS OF BLACK AND FLUSH

"HOLY MOTHERFUCK! NANNERS HAD WRIGGLERS!" Gamzee gasped.

It was utter chaos! Trolls were flailing about and hiding, Vriska was running around the cave while about three imps ate at her hair but was soon saved by Feferi who dumped a bag of water over her head! Just mayhem.

"WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS? WE LEAVE FOR WHAT, TWENTY MINUTES, AND THE CAVE IS ALREADY ABOUT TO TUMBLE TO THE FUCKING GROUND? GET YOUR SHIT ORGANIZED!" Karkat shouted in a panic.

"KK! The ranting can wait! Letth jutht take care of thethe thingth!" Sollux interrupted. He began to rush towards the main computer and type incredibly fast. From there, he managed to create a barrier around the cave.

"SOLLUX! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WE WANT THEM OUT, NOT IN!" Karkat flailed.

"Don't worry KK! I know what I'm doing! We have to close off the cave entrantheth tho that no more imps can make their way inthide!"

"OK! AT THIS POINT, I DON'T FUCKING CARE WHAT YOUR PLAN IS AS LONG AS IT WORKS!"

"On it! Kanaya, do me a favor and get as many impth ath you can in one plathe uthing your chainthaw! From there we can dethtroy more of them at a time! We're about to get rich with gritht everyone!"

Kanaya nodded and did as she was told. Then when she managed to gather as many imps as possible, either her or another troll would finish them off. Meanwhile Gamzee attempted to find Nanners in the mess of imps to protect it from the sudden extermination process. Nanners seemed different from the rest in that it was friendlier and a lot more intelligent than the others, so it didn't take long for Makara to scoop him up and put him in a little hole inside the cave in the mean time.

"You wait there little bro. I'll get you out right after we're done here, I promise." He patted Nanners on the head, then put his sleeping bag over the imp pit and scurried away to help the others.

In the midst of all this rapid chaos, Jade was just finishing getting the last few of their grocery bags out of the car and into her house, when her grandfather's cell phone rang.

"JADE! It says...Egg...nut..." He handed the phone to her.

"That's 'Egbert' Grandpa..." Jade replied. "OH! That must be John! Hello?"

"JADE! Awesome! I got the right number!" Sure enough, it was the movie loving John on the other side of the line, and he seemed quite excited about something.

"How did you manage getting Grandpa's cell phone number?" The girl asked while attempting to lift another bag out of the vehicle.

"Grandma Jane told me after a while of thinking and digging through a bunch of old papers! I'm so glad I got in touch with you! See, there was something I forgot about telling you guys during lunch because of the food fight distraction."

"Oh?" Jade asked. "And what was that?"

"A few periods before, I was in the bathroom, and so were two of the foreign students. Gamzee and...Tavros I think. Anyway, they were talking about some kind of imp getting lost inside the school! And even went so far as to calling themselves trolls!"

"Hmm..." The girl replied. "Now that you mention it..." She began. "I ran into a few of them myself! At the super market, with Grand dad!"

"Really?"

"Yeah...and they WERE acting a bit strange...I think I might be starting to believe you about this whole alien thing John...maybe...our experiment really DID work..."

"YES!"

"But still, I don't want to jump to any conclusions! That would be embarrassing."

"Aww..."

"Maybe we would think differently if we got to know them better." Harley said.

"You sound like you have an idea Jade."

"Yeah! I think I might..."

"And that is?"

"Well, it's simple! As a welcome gift to the school, and the town, we can invite them to go somewhere with us! You know, like the mall or the park...anywhere they want really! It would be kind of fun!"

"Hmm...as much as I don't get along with Karkat or Eridan...that actually might be a pretty good idea." John replied while thinking. "I mean who knows, maybe they aren't all like that."

"Exactly!" Giggled Jade.

"Do you think that Dave and Rose would be willing to get in on it too?" Egbert asked curiously.

"Maybe! Could you give them a call tonight and find out?"

"I'll do my best!"

"Thanks so much John! I expect answers tonight before I go to bed!"

"Again, I'll do my best Jade!" They hung up.

Back at the cave, it was still utter madness! Even though the madness was pretty much dying down at this point, the trolls were still running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. Nanners slowly crept out of its hidey hole to run around with the others, because as it was smarter than most imps, it was still pretty stupid all at the same time.

"OH COME ON! JUST DYE ALREADY!" Karkat said while flailing his favorite sickle around to attack the imps.

"I believe they are starting to slow down now Karkat!" Kanaya said while lightly rubbing the sweat off of her forehead.

"About fucking time! These things won't stop coming out of nowhere!"

"I got a whole bunch right here Karkles!" Terezi smiled with a toothy grin.

"Nice to know you're actually helping us this time Pyrope!" Vantas said. He continued to fight and collect grist.

"Yeah! At this rate we'll be able to create anything we want!" Feferi glubbed happily.

"I'm going to look in the tunnel next door!" Vriska waved.

"Ok, you fucking do that!" Karkat replied.

Right before the tunnel entrance, the blue blooded female troll spotted Nanners nibbling on some chips that it found scattered all over the floor. She didn't recognize it though, and figured it was merely another one of the imps they were trying to destroy.

"Ah ha! I see you there ugly! Get over here!" She put her hands out next to her and flexed her fingers up and down, ready to pounce.

"No! Wait! Vriska! That's Nanners!" Luckily Tavros had spotted the girl right before she was about to kill the thing and rolled over quickly. Perhaps...too quickly though, because when he managed to get to her, he accidentally rolled on top of Nanners in the process.

"Woah." Was all Vriska said. "You are a cruel, cruel friend Tavros. Well, see ya!" She trotted away.

"Oh my gog! No..." The bull horned boy slowly hoisted himself out of the chair and onto the ground in front of the partially squished imp. He then carefully removed it from underneath his wheel. "Nanners...? Are you ok? Oh gog...what's Gamzee going to say when he-"

"What am I gonna say about what bro?" Gamzee hovered over him from behind, then looked stunned to see that his little imp friend was appearing quite dead before him.

"Oh gosh...Gamzee! I'm so sorry! I was trying to rescue him from Vriska and...I guess I wheeled up to her too fast..." The little Nitram boy started to cry a little, and Gamzee knelt down beside him.

"I-It's ok bro..." He said while sadly putting his hand on Tavros's back. "Here...let me see him..." The smaller boy nodded once, then let Gamzee take the imp up and into his arms. He poked at it a few times with his pointer finger, but the thing wouldn't move.

"Do you think...maybe we can bring it back?" Tavros asked while wiping the tears off of his face.

"I dunno motherfucker...he looks pretty dead to me..." Makara replied.

"Wait...l-let me see something." The Nitram said, this time with a bit more hope in his voice. "Um...little imp guy? Nanners? If you're alive, could you please say something to me with your mind? I'll be able to understand you...I think...p-please?"

There was silence.

"Nanners?" Tavros gulped, and his lip started to quiver. Then out of complete impulse, he pressed his mouth against the imp's and breathed hard! Nanners woke up!

"MOTHERFUCKER HE'S ALIVE!" Gamzee said with a widened smile. "THANK YOU BRO! THANK YOU!" He hugged Tavros tightly, almost re-crushing Nanners again in the process.

"I-It's no problem Gamzee!" Tavros twitched. His face was bright rust colored, either because he was chocking, or because of the hug, because for a troll, any extreme grasping or touching is considered slightly more than just what us humans look at it as. However because Gamzee was Gamzee, it didn't really affect him much because he was not well taught the trollian ways as a pupa.

"Will you two stop making love to each other in the middle of the cave? Everyone can fucking see you!" The imp rampage had died down just enough for Karkat to notice the two trolls hugging one another, and he looked disgusted.

Tavros put his arms up as though he was about to be arrested.

"W-we weren't making love!" He said with a nervous expression on his face.

"Heh heh...yet~..." Gamzee teased.

"GAH!" Tavros used as much strength in his leg stubs to get away from Gamzee's hugging grip and ran backwards into a wall.

"Relax my brother! It was just a joke." The Makara boy smiled, no matter how unbelievable his statement might have seemed. He then got up with Nanners in his arms and happily walked away. Tavros twitched.

"So we're finally done..." Karkat sighed before slumping up against a wall to relax and catch his breath.

"Hopefully..." Sollux said.

"What do you mean hopefully? I don't want to see another fucking imp again in my life! How the fuck are they even here in the fucking first place? Did we bring them with us in the lab or something?"

"It'th a pothebility KK." Captor replied.

"Ugh...well, let's get our nooks for brains to sleep then. Fuck knows we're going to need it..."

"Right."

They all settled in for the night, the six trolls who went to the super market changed back into their troll forms, and Nepeta cuddled close to Equius's arm until it got too sweaty for her. Then when it did, she rolled over on her side and sighed contently.

"I had a wonderfurl day today Equius...It was so much fun." She smiled.

"Mm..." Was all the sleepy blue blood said in reply.

Feferi placed her hand on top of Sollux's shoulder as her and Aradia started to fall asleep next to him. She was worried about Eridan, and this was halting her sleeping process.

"Sollux...?" She asked quietly.

"Hm...?" He replied.

"Do you think that Eridan is ok sleeping over there...alone? He saw this really pretty human girl today you sea...and I'm worried that he's going to fall for her or something..."

"Why are you worried?" The Captor asked quietly. "Eridan fallth for everyone..."

"I guess because...I don't know...I'm still sort of attached to him a little bit...even though we argue almost constantly...and he's a jerk...and..."

"You thound like you're going back and fourth between kithmetheth and moirail...why don't you go talk to him about it? You know, let me thleep for a while or thomething..."

"Yeah..." Feferi sighed. "Maybe you're right..." She got up slowly, and quietly walked over sleeping bags to get to where Eridan was resting.

"Eri...?" She whispered in the darkness.

"Fef...I'm tryin' to sleep..." Grumbled the sea dwelling troll.

"I know...I just have a question for you is all..."

Eridan turned around on his other side to face her.

"Wwhat...?" Was all he said.

"It's about Isabella..."

Eridan's pupils shifted to the corners of his eye sockets.

"Go on..."

"Well...you really like her...don't you?"

"Wwhat's it to ya?"

Feferi sighed yet again.

"I just wanted to tell you that no matter how much she despises me, and I despise her...it doesn't matter to me who you decide to hang around with...ok?"

"Wwhatevver..." Eridan huffed.

"Really? I try to be nice to you and that's your only response? Well what if I DID care? I bet it wouldn't matter to you...considering how glubbin' idiotic you are! You don't care about anyone but yourself, and that's why you don't get anyone to be with you!"

"Feferi!" Karkat grumbled. "Keep it the fuck down will ya? We're trying to get some shut eye here..." Terezi nuzzled against a reluctant Vantas's chest and simply smiled. She didn't seem to care at all how loud they were.

"Ugh...sorry Karkat..." The sea dwelling she troll exhaled. "Look Eridan..." She continued. "Do whatever you want...just...leave me out of it, ok?" The girl got up, and walked back to her sleeping bag. Meanwhile, Eridan covered his head with the little sleeping bag that he had.

"That bad huh CC?" Sollux mumbled. He sounded like he was about to fall asleep.

"I guess so..." Feferi replied. She then rolled over on her side, and started to sob a little. Captor sighed.

"Don't be thad..." He said quietly while staring up at the ceiling.

"Yes Feferi..." Aradia joined in from the other side of the nearly sleeping Sollux. "Don't cry..."

Feferi wiped her eyes.

"Sorry...I...I'll try to get some sleep now."

On the other side of the cave, Gamzee grinned at a slightly scarred Tavros Nitram as they were laying down next to each other.

"Uhhhh..." The awkward bull troll shivered with widened eyes.

Gamzee lightly bit the boy's nose.

"Honk."

"EEP"

Nanners came up from the underside of the covers to see what was going on and made a meeping sound. It was cute, and slightly broke the awkwardness for Tavros. He giggled quietly, and Gamzee joined him with a soft chuckle.

"Goodnight bro." He smiled.

"Night." Tavros smiled back. Then finally, there was silence in the cave.

The next day, everyone came into school like always. The night before, John managed to get Rose and Dave to agree with their little get together plan. He got back to Jade, and all seemed like it was going accordingly! And so, lunch arrived.

"So..." John said wearily. "Which one of us has the balls to ask them if they want to hang out?"

"Ummm...Rose?" Jade looked at her blond friend with puppy dog eyes.

"No! You got out of your last little endeavor as leader of the alien squad, so I'm sure not going to let you get away with this one. You tell them Jade, it was your idea to begin with." The girl argued.

"Oh fine..." Harley sighed. She then got up, and slowly made her way to the foreign exchanged table.

"...And so that is why I threw the science experiment out the window...and almost the science teacher in the process..." Karkat said, continuing whatever it was he was talking about before. Apparently this involved partial defenestration. He turned his head. "Oh gog is that that one Jade girl we talked to at the super market? Oh fuck, it is..."

"Um, hey there everyone!" Jade said, as optimistic as possible.

"What do YOU want?" Grumbled the Vantas.

"Well, I was just wondering if any of you guys would like to hang out with me and my friends at the mall sometime!" The girl smiled.

"What the fuck is a mall?"

"THE MALL!" Kanaya shouted from the far end of table. "I know what the mall is! Of course we'll come! When? What time? Today?"

"Uh...sure? I got my class project done sooner than I thought, so I should be free today! Along with the rest of us! I already talked to them about it and-" Jade was cut off by Karkat.

"Will someone answer my fucking question about what the fuck this mall thing is anyway?" He complained.

"Oh the mall is a wonderful place Karkat! Filled with food, jewelry, clothing, anything your pity bulb could possibly desire really! Please let us go today Vantas! You promised us that we could go to a clothing store today and well, this is our chance!" The tall Maryam girl was starting to act like a grub again.

"GUH! Gog damn it! Why do I always make promises that I don't want to even fucking keep in the end! Fine! We'll go!" Karkat said while rubbing at his temples.

"YES! Oh Karkat, I promise you won't regret it!" Kanaya stated happily. She was jumping up and down for joy at this point, a very surprising thing for her to do considering her usual calming demeanor.

"Yeah yeah...whatever..." Groaned Vantas.

"OH YAY! This is going to be fun!" Jade said with a smile. She then gave her friends the thumbs up sign.

"Looks like it's a go!" John smiled.

"Cool..." Dave said calmly. He was already making connections between the foreign students and the imps that he was encountering recently. Especially that "juggalo" guy, considering his attempts in trying to protect the thing that escaped into the school during lunch time. He was in deep thought.

"Dave? Are you alright?" Rose asked curiously.

"Yeah. Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind." He replied.

That afternoon after school, the sixteen students readied themselves to explore this grand building that went by the name of: "THE MALL" Grandma Jane and Rose's mom had agreed to take them.

"I'm not sure which is a worse idea John..." Dave whispered to Egbert in the back of the large van. "Being driven by your crazy Grandma, or Rose's drunk ass mom."

In Grandma Jane's vehicle, Gamzee sat next to her in the front, while Tavros sat way in the back next to Dave and John for easier access to his wheelchair, which was in the trunk of the vehicle. Then in the middle, was Nepeta, Equius, and Karkat. Karkat was in between them.

"Purrr...Karkitty, I am sorry we have to be so squished up together like this, but don't worry, we'll get out soon." The kitten girl smiled as she nuzzled the angry boy's arm.

"Ugh..." Was all he said. Meanwhile Equius was glaring at them the entire time.

"This wheel device...is very interesting." Tavros smiled while looking at the interior of the van.

"You mean a car?" Dave asked.

"Oh, is that what is called? How neat!" The smaller boy grinned.

Grandma Jane paused for a moment to stare at Gamzee before she got inside to drive them. The Makara boy only grinned at her.

"What's the hold up Gram?" John asked, noting that she was stalling to get in.

"Mrrrrrr..." She replied shakily before finally getting inside. She started the vehicle, the entire time occasionally glancing up at the apparently frightening looking Gamzee.

"What's up motherfucker?" The boy grinned as they began to drive smoothly. "You're lookin' kind of pale. Is there a reason you keep starin' at me like that?"

Grandma Jane's eyes were sporadically switching from the road, to Gamzee's face, but she didn't answer. Gamzee only shrugged and stared at the road up ahead of them.

In the other van, Rose's mom got in a lot faster than Grandma Jane. She was chewing on some gum as a replacement for her awful drinking habit. Rose sighed.

"Well, at least she's sobering up in order to drive us, right Rose?" Jade asked in the back of the car.

"You don't understand Jade...when mom is sober...things get scary..."

"Oi! I can hear you back dare Rosey!" Her mother said while smacking her lips and briefly blowing a bubble out the side of her mouth.

"Here we go..." The young Lalonde girl sighed once again.

This van was bigger than the last in that it had three more seats. Sollux sat in the front next to the older Roxy, while Kanaya sat next to Jade and Rose in the second to last row. Then in the second row down from left to right sat Terezi (who was licking the window), feferi (who was staring at her awkwardly) and finally, Aradia (who wasn't really paying attention to begin with). Then in the very last row, sat from left to right, Eridan, a gap, then Vriska. Eridan had managed to put together some sort of cellular device to contact Isabella with. He was texting her the entire time.

Roxy readied her vehicle and started to pull out behind Grandma Jane, who was going at least two miles per hour.

"Can we speed it up a little or something? A slime beast could go faster than this!" Karkat complained. In the other van, Roxy was sharing his feelings. She peeked her head out the window.

"COME ON TIGHT ASS! GET A MOVE ON, I'M DYING BACK HERE!" She screamed.

"Alright! Keep yer bloomin' pants on ya drunk!" Grandma Jane replied. She continued on for a few minutes, slow as ever.

"Ugh...this is such a waist of time!" Vantas continued.

"Wait for iiiit..." John said in the back. A few moments after, the old lady revved the engine and ZOOMED out in front of all the other cars on the highway!

"HO SHIT!" Roxy said from the other car. She too then revved her engine and raced to catch up.

"OLD LADY! YOU'RE MADE OF MOTHERFUCKIN' MIRACLES DAWG!" Gamzee said as the wind coming in from the window made his cheeks flap backwards on his face.

"HOPE EVERYONE IS BUCKLED UP!" Old lady Jane said.

"KARKITTY!" Nepeta screamed in the back.

Because he wasn't wearing a seat belt, the Vantas boy lost his seating and started to tumble around in the car.

"Oh shit! I forgot to warn you about that Karkat! You have to buckle up when you're riding with my Grandma!" John said agape.

"SOMEONE STOP THIS FUCKING THING!"

Even though the Lalonde van was going almost as fast as the Egbert one, Eridan seemed to keep his composure just so that he could continue texting Isabella. Feferi saw him through the front mirror and tried to brush it off. The car ride was beginning to calm down.

"Hey..." Sollux said. "What are all thethe knobs for?"

"A whole lot of shit." Roxy bluntly replied.

"Hm...I thee..." He pressed a button and the wind shield wipers came on. "Oooooh~ Nifty!" The boy said while watching the blades going back and fourth. Roxy turned them off, and Sollux pouted.

"Wow." Vriska said in the back. "At the rate we're going, we'll get to the mall in-"

"WE'RE HERE!" Roxy sung happily.

"No...time..." Serket continued.

Everyone stepped out, and Gamzee helped Tavros get to his wheel chair in the back. Jane continued to stare at him.

"Sup motherfucker?" The boy said once again, this time hoping for an answer. The woman's lips were tightly pressed together.

"Cod... piece..." Was all her response.


	11. Episode 10: All Hail the Mall!

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 10

ALL HAIL THE POWER OF THE MALL

When you have no idea how to describe how excited you are about something in which you are randomly standing before, what do you do? As for me, I stare blankly at it for a while in attempt to regester its awesome. Well, that's basically what was going on with all the trolls when they entered the center of the mall. They stood there, practically in a cluster, all with their mouths wide open. (Except for Eridan who was still too distracted by his grist made cellular device.) Jade caught notice to everyone's shocked expressions.

"Um...guys?" She went around the forien students in a circle and waved her hand rappidly over a few of their faces only to get zero reaction. "Hello?"

"Man..." Dave said. "It's like they've never seen a mall before."

"We...have not..." Kanaya stated in awe. "It is absolutely everything that I imagined and more!"

"Seriously?" Said John. "You guys have never been to a mall in your lives? Dude, it's like the station for everything buyable!"

"Is buyable even a word?" Rose asked while making her way around the crowd. "Hm...buyable..." (No seriously, is that a word? Ok no, nevermind, if not it's a word now.)

Eridan looked up from his phone.

"Wwoah...wwhere are wwe again?" Feferi, who was next to the other sea dweller, glared and elbowed him in the shoulder. "Oww! Wwhat wwas that for?"

"We're at the mall silly! Don't you remember us talking about it earlier? Or were you having too much fun blubbering to your new matesprit?" After this was said, the girl huffed. "Nevermind Eridan...I'm just going to keep my distance from you now."

"Suit yourself." The boy shrugged.

"Wow you guyth...me-ow!" Sollux said. He then began to shiver. "Don't make me go all authpithtuth on your atheth."

"Oh it's ok! No need for that!" Feferi giggled as she took Sollux by the arm and walked in front of the cluster with a smile on her face.

"Gah! Where are you taking me?"

"To the front silly! That way we can spend more alo-ne time together!"

"You're trying to make him jelouth aren't you?"

Feferi blinked twice then stared at Sollux blankly.

"No. Shut up Sollux." She twitched.

"Ok, whatever..." He replied.

"Oh where shall we go first?" Kanaya asked everyone excitedly. She was eyeing a map placed conviniently in the near center of the mall. "So many clothing stores such little time!"

"I sure hope that isn't the ONLY fucking thing we're going to do all day! I don't give a shit about fashion! Can we just, split up or something?" Karkat grumbled after finally getting his attention off of all the strange signs and colors surrounding him.

"How about we just explore?" Said Jade. "And then when we see a store that catches our interest, we can stop in for a little while and move on after that?"

"Um..._I_ like the idea Jade." Tavros smiled at her from his wheel chair.

"Hee hee! Thank you Tavros!" She smiled back. Gamzee, who was partially steering Tav's chair, looked at her for a minute then grinned.

"HEY! You're the motherfucker Tav was talking about during lunch time the other day aren't you? You lookin' in ta stealin' my bro little sister? Honk honk honk!" He said jokingly. Tavros was starting to look like an old bicycle that was in the rain for too long with how much rust colored blush was showing through his tanned face.

"G-Gamzee! That's... embarrassing..." He whispered while grabing the sides of both of his arms. Jade only giggled, and patted the blushing boy on the head. This made him even rustier in appearance.

"You're adorable Tavros! I'm glad we became friends too!" She removed her hand, and Tavros immediately fixed his hair and giggled a little like an infatuated derp.

"So are we gonna get walkin' or what?" Rose's mother asked while loudly chewing her peice of bubble gum.

"Yes, yes mother. Come along everyone, my mom is obviously showing off her impatience..." Rose sighed. So far she wasn't so sure how this entire mall thing was going to go considering most of her life she tried to AVOID her mom's presense, and now she was stuck with her.

"Hey wait!" John said as he rushed to Roxy and Rose who were up ahead. "Shouldn't we all introduce ourselves to each other or something? I mean, we barely even know anyone's names."

"Oh! Good idea John!" Jade smiled from behind him. She then turned to the others. "Ok, I'm Jade Harley, the cool guy here is Dave Strider...that is Rose Lalonde, and here's John Egbert. I know that I've met some of you already. Thus far, I've befriended Tavros, and introduced myself to Sollux and Karkat. You, the big guy, you're Equius right?"

Equius pointed to himself curiously.

"Yes! You! The big guy!"

"I perfer STRONG!" He said while proudly crossing his arms.

"Oh, ok, but your name IS Equius, right?" Jade smiled.

"Yes...and this is Nepeta Leijon..." He pointed to the girl wrapped around his neck.

"Hee hee! Equius! I can introduce myself! Hello Jade! You can call me AC! I think that we could become good furiends!"

"Yeah! I think so too AC!"

Jade put out her hand for the two to shake it, only to get odd glances from them both.

"Oh...right...you guys don't do the whole hand shake thing...eh heh. Well wait, if that's the case, how DO you greet each other?"

"How we just did silly!" Nepeta smiled.

"Um...ok I guess. Anyway! What's everybody else's names?"

"Well..." Said Nepeta. "The blind one is Terezi Pyrope, the texting one is Eridan Ampura-"

"Pora..." Eridan corrected as he was still texting.

"Whatever...hee hee! This one in front of us is Gamzee Makara..."

"Honk." Gamzee smiled.

"Feferi Peixes..."

"Glub glub!" The sea dwelling girl grinned.

"Aradia Megido, Kanaya Maryam and Vriska Serket!" The kitten girl finally finished.

"Oh wow! Well, I hope I can remember everyone's names alright then!" Harley smiled.

"Come OOOOOOOON already guys! I'm tired of just standing here!" Vriska said while rolling her eyes.

"Righto!" Said Grandma Jane. "Let's go!"

Unfortunately for the rest of them, the first store of interest was in fact, a clothing store.

"OH MY GRACIOUS! IT'S BEAUTIFUL!" Kanaya's eyes shimmered intensely with green zest as she stared at the shop in front of them. Karkat groaned. He was NOT looking forward to this experience.

They went inside, and of course, the place was filled with clothing materials and accessories.

"Shit bros!" Gamzee started. "Look at this! I'm a motherfuckin' super star! Miracles dawgs. This entire place is full of them!" He said as he put on a pair of wicked ass shades. Dave chuckled.

"Woah man, you are SO fuckin ICP..." He said while looking at some of the glasses himself.

"What the fuck is ICP motherfucker? Sounds SO legit."

"Oh it's legit all right. I'll show you a video sometime..."

"Ok bro. Sounds like a motherfuckin' deal to me. Heh ha..."

"Woooooow!" Tavros smiled from not too far away. He was looking at some tinker bell shirts. "Fairy shirts! This is so cool!"

"Fairy shirts are so NOT posh!" Kanaya intervened. "Anything but actually. If you were to get my opinion at least."

"Oh..." Said Tav while looking to the floor.

"But don't worry Tavros! I have you covered! Just wait! We are going to give you the ULTIMATE clothing MAKEOVER!"

"Oh gosh..." The Nitram boy said as he was rolled away by Kanaya's swift legs.

"Hee hee hee hee hee~" Terezi chuckled. "Thish shirt tashtes geeeewd!" She said with a mouth full of red sweater.

"GAH! TEREZI STOP THAT!" Karkat flailed.

Eridan was STILL texting, he stopped however whenever he ran into some kind of hard object.

"WWHAT THE COD? WWATCH WWHERE YOUR-" He found out that it was a clothing wrack. A clothing wrack filled with scarves. And considering his last scarf was sort of ruined, this pretty much made his day. "Fuckin'...wwin..." He said with a smile.

"Look Sollux! Bathing suits!" Feferi giggled as she pulled her potential matesprit by the arm towards the swim wear section of the store.

"Oh joy...more doltish idiocrathy involving thin outer layerth of water proof material wear..." The boy sighed. He went anyway though.

Aradia's eyes shifted from side to side as she tried on a single cowboy hat.

"It isn't enough..." She said to herself dully. So she put another one on top of that. It was still unsatisfactory, so, ANOTHER hat was place on top of THAT one.

"Ha! What are you DOING Aradia?" Vriska laughed from behind her, causing the Megido girl to jump. The hats fell on the floor, and she bent over to pick them up.

"I'm amusing myself Vriska. Can I not do that?" She answered with a huff.

"Well sure! It just looked really stupid is all!"

"Yes...perhaps you are right. Oh well." Aradia put the hats back onto the wrack, and from there, the two chatted among themselves on which ones looked stupid and which ones didn't. Meanwhile not too far away, Nepeta was trying on all the fuzzy accessories she could find with Equius by her side!

"These are so sooooft!" The girl said as she cuddled one of the fuzzy pajama outfits that she found. Equius said nothing, and simply watched like the creepy assed motherfucker that he was.

"So do you think they like it here guys?" John said with a look of befuddled amusement to Rose and Jade.

"I think...so..." Jade twitched.

"Yes. Let's just hope we don't get kicked out by their...more than strange behaviors..." Rose stated dryly. It seemed that the adults were amusing themselves elsewhere.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Introducing the new and improved TAVROS NITRAM!" Kanaya said with a sparkly attitude as she whisked herself to the front of the dressing room where Tav reluctantly rolled out. He was in an all leather outfit and might have resembled some kind of motorcyclist if it wasn't for the fact that the clothes he was wearing looked two times his size.

"Uh...ta da?" The boy said as the sunglasses he was wearing tilted in an odd way on his face. Kanaya twitched.

"Um...ok, let's try this again. Sorry everyone! False alarm!" She sighed. She then handed him another pile of clothing and pushed him backwards inside the dressing room with her foot.

"Oh you look good Eridan!" Feferi teased as she came back with a pile of different bathing suits in her arms.

"Ah, thank you Fef! At least you havve some sort of sense in style!"

"I know right? But you know what would look even better?" She grinned.

"Wwhat?"

"You should totally try this scarf on too! AND THIS ONE AND THIS ONE AND THIS ONE AND THIS ONE! AND LETS NOT FORGET ABOUT THIS ONE!" By the time she was done with him, his entire head was wrapped in scarves and he was trying his hardest to struggle free.

"COHD DOM IT FUF!" His voice muffled out as he continued his attempt at releasing himself.

"Se-ea! You look MUCH better now!" The girl grinned. Sollux tried not to laugh, but did end up chuckling too.

"Wow...that wath...SNORT...pretty fucking low Feferi!" He said with his hand partially covering his mouth to keep in the snorts and giggles. "Are you sure you two aren't kithmetheth?"

Eridan fell over and started to roll around on the floor till he was finally able to get the scarfs off of his head, but when he did that, he realized he had stopped right at the edge of a random staircase and started to fall. Dave side stepped on the top of the railing and stared down at him.

"You ok?" He shouted.

"NYEH!" Was all he heard in response.

"You should be careful of those stairs bro! Things are dangerous!"

"Looks like motherfuckin' fun!" Gamzee said from behind the Strider. He then jumped over the stair case and tumbled down. "WHEEE! OW OW OW OW OW HONK!" The boy landed on Eridan.

"...Man..." Said Dave. "I WARNED YOU ABOUT THOSE STAIRS BRO!"

Gamzee rubbed his head.

"Honk..."

Karkat stared blankly at the shirt wrack before him and sighed, taking out every black colored long sleeve shirt that he could find.

"You lack variety Karkat!" Terezi grinned. "I know you like licorice but GEEZE! Have some flavor boosters! Like this!" She pulled out a candy red short sleeved shirt with the words, _"I'm with stupid" _in white font with a bunch of arrows pointing in every direction from it. Dave peeked out of the corner because his irony senses were tingling, then slowly crept back into hiding. (Which was probably by the staircase again.)

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Karkat face palmed.

"Ironic, isn't it?" The girl smiled. "You want it! You need it!" She rubbed it against his face.

"GAH! TEREZI! STOP THAT! I WILL FUCKING DISOWN YOU!"

"Karkitty!" Nepeta pounced on the boy's back. "I think that you should wear something that I found fur you!" She smiled.

"WHAT?" Vantas shouted as he was still being tormented by the red cloth being smothered all over his head.

"This of course!" She put a knitted cat hat onto his head and smiled. At first, he said nothing, until finally the steam rolling out of his ears calmed down somewhat.

"Nepeta..."

"Yes?"

"Get the fuck off of me."

"Mmkay!" She jumped off and trotted away purring.

Once Eridan finally got his bearings back in place, he spotted something that was apparently AMAZING and lifted it off of the wrack to try it on. He went into the dressing room, and once that was over, Tavros came out again!

"AH!" Kanaya exclaimed. "Ok everyone! This time it's for real! Introducing, the new and improved Tavros Nitram!"

He looked pretty good this time! He was wearing a plaid over shirt with a white sleeveless underneath. Then for his bottom were tan cargo shorts.

"Looking good Tavros!" Jade praised. Gamzee managed to take a peek too.

"Aw yeah bro! I like it! But you know what else you motherfuckin' need?"

"Uh...what's that Gamzee?"

"This!" He got out a bandanna with fire print on it and tied it around Tav's neck. It didn't really match the rest of his outfit, but that didn't stop it from being adorable on him! Kanaya however did not share that opinion and snatched it off of his neck. She flickered it onto the ground.

"Are you kidding? That doesn't even match the outfit! If he's to wear a scarf it should be something that looks as though it belongs, wouldn't you agree?" She said almost snobbishly. She wasn't usually like this, but when it came to clothing...well...you get the picture. Gamzee looked a little disappointed.

"Actually Kanaya..." Tavros said. He leaned over his wheelchair arm to pick the bandanna back up off of the ground. "I kind of like it." This made Gamzee grin again.

"Aw yeah bro! That way you can express them sick fires of yours! Others will be all, 'Hot fuckin' damn! That motherfucker's got swag!'"

"Hee hee! Yeah Gamzee! I agree!" Smiled Tav.

"Me too!" Jade said happily.

"Fine! Suit yourselves...I'll be working on finding my own material now. I'm sorry if my head was starting to swell. Metaphorically speaking of course." The Maryam sighed.

"It's all chill sister! You go do that and get your motherfuckin' fashion on or some shit!" Said Gamzee positively.

"Thank you Makara. I believe I will."

At the end of this shopping session, Eridan popped out of the dressing room in his AMAZING outfit! It was...IT WAS...a very off looking bikini...

"I FEEL GLUBBIN FANTASTIC!" He cried. I'm pretty sure that at this point everybody face palmed.

"OH GOD! PUT THOME CLOTHETH ON CA!" Sollux said while shielding his eyes.

"I SECOND THAT! FUCK ERIDAN, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" Karkat exploded. As for the naturally human kids, they were all in cosmic shock.

"Wwhy does nobody lovve meeee?" Eridan cried.

Once they were able to pull Eridan away from his little bikini endevour, Karkat agreed with Kanaya that she could stay behind to get everyone clothing. Sollux distributed everyone's size to her through his own portable cellular device too, this way she wouldn't make the same mistake she made with Tavros the first time he was trying on his new outfit. Then after this was all set and done, they continued on through the mall. Their next stop seemed to be some sort of electronics shop, and when they entered, Sollux's hertera chromatic eyes lit up like a happy go lucky police car.

"Holy shit..." He said. "Thith ith beautiful."

"Hm...a lot of this stuff might actually be helpful for us." Karkat said while looking through a bunch of blank CDs and the like. For the first time in a while he seemed pretty posetive.

"HA HA!" Gamzee grinned excitedly at an electric DJ table not too far away from the crowd. He put on some headphones that came with it and spoke into the microphone. "Tav! Check this shit out!"

Tavros rolled towards him curiously.

"Oh sweet!" He said with toothy smile.

"Yeee man! DJ Gamzee the M rocker here with some wicked ass beats! We've got our special guest the big T here with some motherfuckin' pimp rumped specialties served up all nice for you on a fuckin' golden platter! You ready to bust out them rhymes my main brother?" The Makara boy smiled with his best DJ voice he could muster, which, actually didn't sound all that bad!

"Oh yes! So tight!" The bull boy agreed.

"Speak out your fuckin feels through the mic motherfucker and lets get this bitch started! I'll dish off the beats!" Gamzee pressed a button, and a good tune started to come out in a consistant pattern. "ARE YOU READY?"

Tav grinned and began his rhymes happily.

"Magic is soothing, not to be deluting but please, let's get our swag on with the birds in the trees! Yeah! This thing ain't just for fun, it's a message, a word, when the sights converge into a big old beast! Can you feel me at least? This passion I feel to burst like the seas! Yeah!"

"Holy shit my brother! I have never heard you produce such sick rhymes!"

"Yeah! I think that with you, I get a little bit more confidence in myself Gamzee!"

"Aww yeah T bro! Let's kick even more of this shit! No wait, I'll do the kickin', and you do the catchin my swag Dr. N!"

"Show me what you have, my capracious friend!"

"All right, I think I will..."

Dave watched them from a distance, still curious about every one of these forien student's behaviors. But the one he was still interested in the most, was Gamzee. Honestly for this Strider brother, he wanted to find out as much as he could, and jot down anything suspicious with his note pad. So that's exactly what he was doing. Thus far, he didn't have much, but oh were his expectations high. The Makara boy continued.

"HEY YO motherfucker, my swank ass dude, ya got a lotta passion in your cranial hood. You produced from your pie hole these sick ass rhymes, and mentioned sweet magic like the miracles I find. The glitter's relentless, strong and true, just like Equius whose blood is blue! Here, take a ticket, your name's on the side, we're goin' to the carnival for a pimp ass ride! Heh haaa!"

"Ya call that rhyming huh?" Dave came up to the both of them and leaned on the DJ table.

"Woah ho ho! Is that some kind of challenge motherfucker?" Gamzee grinned.

"Could be. Let's say we have a rap off or something. I could bet you any money that I'll win."

"You sure about that bro?"

"Sure thing!"

"Hmm...What do you think Tav? Should we take him up on his motherfuckin' challenge?" Gamzee asked the shy Nitram boy.

"Um...I'm not sure...don't you think we'd need more time to prepare or something Gamzee?"

"Mm...You've got a point Tbro. All right Dave, let's make a deal, we'll rap off in say...about...one week...is that good for you motherfucker?"

"Eh, whatever. I don't usually need much time to prepare myself for a rap off, but you guys have fun."

"Heh heh..." Chuckled Makara. "Oh it's on."

Nepeta took Equius by the hand with a cute kitten like grin spread across her face.

"Now Equius, this is a hands behind your back store ok? So don't touch anything or you might break it!" She said happily.

"Yes...I am well aware Nepeta..."

"Ooh! Looky! There are music CDs everywhere! You should listen to some with me!" The girl squeaked.

"Fine. I suppose I could attempt dwelling upon this particular...musical extravaganza."

"YAY!" Nepeta plopped some sample headphones over the taller being's head. "So, which CD would you like to listen to?" She asked happily.

"That one. Over there...with...the hoof beast on it..." Equius pointed to an MLP CD for kids with a look of intrigue on his face.

"Okie dokie!" The Leigon girl smiled. She turned on the music, and Zahhak's eyes started to slowly drift off into some sort of happy land.

"I use to wonder what moiral-ship means..." He sung with his same low male voice.

Vriska looked at a wrack of DVDs and noticed several with the same man's face on the covers. John was standing next to her, looking at a few movies himself.

"Who's this guy?" Serket asked him while picking up one of the video cases.

"Dude! That's Nick Cage! You mean to say you don't know about him?" John asked in surprise. Vriska shook her head. "Aw man!" Egbert continued. "You are SO missing out! Hey, I'll tell you what, I'm going to buy you one of his movies, and you have to watch it ALL the way through. I'm telling you man, you WON'T regret it!"

"Really? You'd buy me something? Hm..."

"Sure thing, I've got the money! Besides, these are all on sale!"

"Wow...I really don't know what to say! What was your name again?"

"John Egbert! Go on and choose your movie, I recommend this one, but you know, if you want to choose another it's totally fine by me."

"Um...no! That one's fine! But it better be good!"

"Don't worry, you'll LOVE it! I assure you! I cry every time!"

"Well ok then..." Vriska was blushing a little to John's sudden kindness towards her.

"Um, are you cold or something? You're looking kind of blue in the face." Egbert mentioned to her curiously.

"Gah!" Vriska wiped her face. "Yeah! I'm fine! Believe me, it's totally normal for my face to change colors sometimes."

"Weird...but whatever! Let's buy this thing!"

"Hey Sollux!" Feferi smiled at her annoyed trollian buddy.

"What...?" Sollux replied distractedly as he was looking through a bunch of the newest computer material.

"I think I found something that you might like!"

Feferi brought him to a box with the words **_"On Sale"_** in bold print on its side.

"Check it out! This stuff is cheap and durable! Am I right? Hm?" She said with a smile.

"Um...CC...?"

"Yeah?"

"Thothe are uthed productth...completely out of their time."

"Oh...ok..." Feferi replied in disappointment.

"I'm going back to the other equipment now. Have fun doing whatever."

"Uh huh..."

"Sollux!" Karkat said with crossed arms. "I talked it over with a few of the others, and they all agreed that you have the most knowledge when it comes to computer tech and equipment. Therefore you have been appointed as the buyer of all things electronic. In other words, we're going to a different store."

"Oh, ok KK." Sollux shrugged.

Karkat stood in the middle of the shop to gather everyone else.

"Alright everyone! To the next fiasco!" He announced.

"Aw man best friend, we were having so much fun too!" Gamzee said with a sigh.

"Fine then. Stay! I don't give a shit! Just be sure you keep an eye on each other. I'm not putting out search parties for you guys and you know that!"

"Will do my main motherfucker!" The Makara boy then smiled.

"Whatever. Everyone else, let's just go..."

"Wow dude. Who made you the leader?" Dave asked as he walked past.

"I did! Now shut the fuck up and do as I say!"

"Ok. It's cool. Don't get your panties all tangled in a bunch about it. Damn."

"Panties? Are you kidding me Strider? I wear underwear! MANRY. FUCKING. UNDERWEAR!"

"Did you just really say manry? Or was that just me?"

"Shut the fuck up Dave!"

They continued on their way.

"Excuse me young man..." The elderly Jane asked Karkat kindly.

"What?"

"Could we please stop first at the cleaning supply shop? I need to buy some new dust rags. That's ok, right?"

"Sure. Whatever. Just don't take too long! I don't want to spend time here any longer than I have to." He replied.

"Thank you so much dear! It won't take long, I promise."

"Good..."

"Cleaning supplies might actually be helpful for us as well Karkat." Aradia mentioned with a small smile.

"We live in a fucking CAVE Aradia, what good are cleaning supplies going to be?"

"Spray for my Ouija board of course!" She replied.

"Ok. Whatever. I don't care. Again, just be quick about it."

"I want to go inside too!" Terezi grinned.

"Why? So you can get high on the fucking smell of the place? Because the last thing I need is a high assed matesprite running around everywhere with me. Gamzee is enough as it is...and he isn't even fucking HIGH! He's drunk all the time on that stupid slop he calls some kind of pimp sneeze, which only increases its disgustingness by about ten fold!"

"Ha ha! You're so funny Karkles!" Terezi said as she went ahead of him anyway. Karkat face palmed.

"Ok, fuck this! It looks like we're all going inside!" He complained.

When he stepped into the store, the first thing he saw was the amount of pales and buckets surrounding the interior of the shop. His eyes grew wide.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE? SOME KIND OF FUCKING SEX SHOP?"

"What are you talking about Karkat?" John asked while stepping up next to him. Meanwhile Terezi was poking at a plastic red pale with her navigation stick.

"It smells delicious!" She cried happily.

"TEREZI! NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DON'T FUCKING LICK THAT!"

The girl's tongue was slowly edging closer to the bucket and she ignored him.

"FUCK! YOU IDIOT! NO!" He ran up to her in order to pull her away, only to run into a tall wrack. It shook for barely even a moment until finally an avalanche of buckets piled on top of him. He started to roll around like a confused moron, all the while shrieking in the process. John ran up to him.

"Dude! Karkat! Calm down! They're just pales!" He said while trying to help the guy out.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT THESE FUCKING THINGS ARE! GET ME OUT OF HERE! FUCK! MY HEAD IS STUCK! OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!" Vantas screamed as his voice was hallowed out by the tin pale placed snug on top of his head.

"Ok, just stay still!" John pulled it off. "There, are you ok now?"

"NO I AM NOT OK!" Karkat flailed. "I'M A FUCKING TIN CAN! WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE OTHERS? DID THEY NOT COME INSIDE AS WELL? WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE TO SUFFER THIS FU-"

John placed the pale back on top of Karkat's head just to shut him up.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

And with that, Egbert walked away.

"I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS FUCKBERT! YOU'LL SEE!"

When all was set and done at this shop, they exited, and went to the next. Karkat was beaten and bruised just from trying to struggle out of the pale pile.

"Hey Karkat?" Jade asked after tapping the enraged boy on the shoulder.

"YES?" He replied. He was getting to his last nerve.

"Can we stop at the pet store? I need to get some food for my dog."

"ARE THERE FUCKING PALES THERE TOO?"

"Um...I don't think so?"

"Fine then! But if there are, I'm LEAVING!"

"Sounds good to me! Let's go!" Jade smiled. She then lead the way to the pet shop.

"OH MY COD IT'S WWATER!" Eridan spotted the fish tanks right away, and so did Feferi. There reactions were somewhat different though, because as Feferi went to look at some of the fish, Eridan wasn't shy at all, and splashed his face inside one of the tanks.

_"Will the customer in the fish isle please remove their head from the crab aquarium? Thank you."_ A board sounding voice came from the speaker, and Eridan removed his head with a crab clamped onto his nose.

"GAAAAAAAAH! GET IT OFF A ME! GET IT OFF A ME!" He cried while running around in a circle like an idiot. The crab let go and climbed back up in its tank like an angry miniature Karkat. "Oh cod I'm bleedin...'" Eridan said as he pulled his purple covered hands away from his face. Dave noticed the blood's strange color, and squinted his eyes at the boy from afar. It was going on his note pad.

"Oh come on Eridan...it isn't that bad! Here, let me-" Feferi started.

"No! Fef. I don't need your help...I havve a kerchief in my pocket."

"Well fine then! You are truly impossible!" The girl said as she walked away. Eridan put the handkerchief over his nose and walked in another direction as well.

Not too far away, Nepeta pressed her nose against the glass window with a room filled with kittens inside. A shop keeper stepped up next to her.

"Excuse me ma'am, but would you like to go inside and see the kittens up close? I have a key if you like." He said kindly. Nepeta looked up at him with watery eyes and nodded. "All right." He unlocked the door and opened it. "Here you go mi-" She ran inside. "-ss..."

"OOOOOH! THEY ARE ALL SO CUTE!" She squeaked while going onto her knees and picking a few of them up to play with. Equius watched her from outside the room and sighed.

"She's never going to come out of there now you know..." He told the shop keeper dryly. The man only nodded in shock with his hair in a whisk from Nepeta's speed.

"Ah..." Eridan said as his nose finally healed up some. He was looking into another tiny tank with a lovely purple beta fish inside. "Hello there little friend. Are you lonely too? Wwell, I'm Eridan Ampora, and I think that you and I could possibly be the best of moirails! Is that alright wwith you? You knoww wwhat? Don't answwer that. I'm buyin' you and namin' you...EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIRST!"

"Um...sir, would you like to purchase that fish or what?" One of the female clerks asked while scratching her head.

"Yes. Yes I wwould."

Feferi sighed from the other section, able to hear Eridan's every word.

"Lonley?" She said to herself. "Ha...funny...you think you're lonely and yet you have that stupid glubbin' Isebella...lonely my TAIL FIN!" She nearly broke the tank she was looking in, but fortunately the glass was unbreakable. "Oh gosh! I'm so sorry you guys! Please don't get too mad at me!"

Soon, Eridan made his way over to Feferi, and put his hand on her shoulder. He nearly looked sympathetic.

"Fef..." He said softly.

"Yes?" She replied, almost calmed down now because of his expression.

"Wwill you do the honors in taking a picture of me and my moirail Emperor Charles the first with my camera phone!" His expression derped completely into a dramatic one toothed grin. Feferi's happy face dropped.

"COD DAMN IT ERIDAN!"

"Wwhat?"

The peixes face palmed.

"Are you done yet Jade?" Karkat nagged. "We've been standing here forever!"

"It's only been a few minutes Karkat." Rose, who was next to Jade, replied. "Besides, finding the perfect food for one's pet takes time."

"I found it!" Jade grinned. She then collected the packaged dog munchies.

"Woopdee fuckin' doo. Now let's get out of here!"

"Ok, just gotta purchase this! In the mean time, go ahead and rally everybody else up!"

Karkat nodded, and told John and Vriska to stop starring at the pet tarantulas for a bit to leave soon. They nodded. Then when he got to the room with all the kittens inside, he mentioned that they were going to leave soon to Equius. It took a while for them to get Nepeta out of her little happy zone, and she even hissed a few times at her pal.

"HISSSS!"

"Nepeta. As your moirail, I command you to come out of this room!" The large male said to his miniature kitten buddy.

"Nuu! I want to stay here with my friends! We were just about to have tea!"

Equius glared at her.

"Oh ok...bye bye everyone!" The girl said with a smile. Her moirail looked suspicious of her, so he took her by her sides and shook her a couple of times. Multiple kittens jumped out from her long jacket. This made Nepeta very dizzy.

"STRONG LIFT!" The man said as he threw the girl over his shoulder. She twitched some as they walked out.

Soon, everyone was finally gathered in the mall. The day was already growing short, and it was about time to go back home. Kanaya had a multitude of bags with her, each one filled to the brim with clothing for each troll.

"Is everyone all set to go?" Grandma Jane said with a smile. "It's still a little early yet, but that's fine. I have a plan for everyone's dinner tonight! Food is on me! Miss Roxy, you're invited too."

"Sounds good to me Granny!" Rose's mother said while popping another bubble from her mouth.

"Really? You're offering us food?" Karkat asked in surprise.

"Well sure! Why not! I absolutely love cooking you see. We could even have a BBQ if the weather is right!" She replied with a smile.

"Wow...humans-"

"People..." Said Sollux.

"Yeah...PEOPLE...sure are strange these days!" Karkat said while scratching his head.

"It's not strange!" Said John. "It's awesome! I love Grandma's picnics!"

"What the FUCK makes you think that we would want to take you up on that offer?" Flailed the angry Vantas boy. Sollux tapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

"Actually KK, that sounds like a good idea. That way we can just walk home from John's place, instead of leading them to where we live..." He mentioned softly.

"Oh, well...in that case...FINE! We'll take you up on that offer." Karkat agreed.

"Wonderful!" Grandma Jane did a little dance. "Go on and contact your parents and we'll get this thing started!"

"Actually..." Said Sollux. "We don't..._have_ parentth..."

"Oh?" Jane scratched her head.

"Yeah...we're...kind of lonerth, you know, we take care of ourthelveth."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But you're all so young!"

"Maybe...but...it'th not all that bad."

"Where do you live then? How do you live?" Questioned the old lady.

"We...live...um..."

"In foster care." Aradia mentioned.

"Woah...Aradia how did you-" Sollux whispered.

"Hey, I can study this stuff too." The girl whispered back.

"Right then." Nodded the Captor. "What she thaid."

"Oh dear! Well, if you ever wish to spend a few nights with us, that's absolutely fine by me!" Jane smiled kindly.

"Gah!" John interrupted. "No Gram, wait! Let's think this through!"

"I have John. And I believe it is in everyone's best interest that they have somewhere to live if they need it!"

"Yeah..." Roxy grinned. "We're completely open too!"

"Oh lord...mother, please no..." Rose groaned.

"Hey, Grandma Janey's got a point here! If they're homeless and all, it's perfectly ok that they live with us!"

"Ugh..." Sighed the young Lalonde girl.

"Oh hey! And I can talk to my Grand Dad about it too! I'm sure he'd love the company!" Jade smiled.

Dave shrugged.

"We have a small place but...if I talk to bro about it, maybe you can chill with us as well."

The entire group of trolls looked absolutely shocked by the humans offer. Never had they experienced such kindness towards them! It was very confusing, and hard to take in. And for the first time in a long time, Karkat started to speak subtly.

"We'll...think about it..." He softly replied.

"Oh good!" Jane said. "Then let's hope back into those vehicles and drive drive drive!"

As confused as they were, the troll kids all agreed to come with them to the picnic old lady Crocker was talking about. That day was going to be a good one.


	12. Episode 11: Scardy PJs

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 11

SCAREDY PJS

(Authors Note: Woah! Random double paragraph post? My bad! No idea how that happened. And it is now fixed.)

The night went on into darkness, but a few flashlights flickered in and out throughout the hallow laboratory the trollian children had entered Earth in. The place echoed and moaned, almost frightening in the silence.

"Yo dude! I think I found something man!" One of the voices belonging to the couple of kids who sneaked in, said to his partner that wasn't too far away.

"What is it?" The other male asked in the echoing room.

"Looks like some kind of rod...wow...dude! I think this is solid gold!"

A shadow loomed out from the pitch blackness before them, the rod in hand, and a grin on its coal colored face. It was a woman. One with incredibly long, dark hair...

"Clap...clap~ Somebody knows their material." She said with a fluent and sensual voice.

The boys jumped back and screamed, but she wasn't going to let them get away that easy. She stepped forth.

"Boys, boys, calm down! I simply wish to teach you a lesson! Wish to defend yourself? Hmm?" With her long and elegant fingers, she fondled the underside of one of the men's chins and pulled him close to her face. "Water you waiting for?"

Their whimpering stopped when a quick gush of fluids echoed in the great, hallow, laboratory. She laughed. And then, there was silence.

"GAAAAAAAGH!" Karkat screamed before the cave when him and the others had returned to their "home". "FUCKING AGAIN? THESE IMPS HAVE GOT TO GO!"

"Aww..." Gamzee sighed. "Karkat, they're just tryin' to have fun best friend!"

"NO! THEY WILL NOT HAVE FUN! IT IS NO LONGER ALLOWED! I THOUGHT WE TOOK CARE OF THESE PESTS!"

"Weird..." Said Sollux. "I thought for sure I left up a barrier before we went to thcool today..."

"Well OBVIOUSLY they got in SOMEHOW!" Vantas yelled.

"Yeah. I thee that."

"Well..." Said Kanaya. "I might as well take care of them..." She revved up her chainsaw that she got out from who knows where.

"Yes. Let's all sweat our asses off yet AGAIN before we go to bed, shall we?" The cancer groaned. "Oh well...let's just fucking DO this shit."

Again, the cave was cleared of all imps. It didn't take as long this time because it seemed the troll children were a little bit more experienced, but they were still pretty tired when they finally finished.

"Ok...THIS...has GOT to stop...FUCKING...insane...bluh..." Karkat fell over then instantly fell asleep.

"Awww!" Nepeta purred. "Karkitty wore himself out!"

"Heh heh..." Terezi laughed. "Smells like it!"

"We should theriouthly do thomething about thothe impth though." Sollux twitched.

"Oh lets just go to bed!" Said Eridan. "It wwas such a long day today...and I'm fuckin' tired."

"Are you serious Eridan?" Feferi complained. "You're not going to bed tonight! You're going to text Isabella!"

"No I wwon't. Just for a little wwhile until I drift off to sleep."

"Ugh...I rest my case..."

"Wwhatevver..."

"Wait! Before you all go to sleep, how about you try on your new pajamas!" Kanaya smiled. "I got them each special for you all according to your personalities! For Aradia, here is a beautiful dark red night gown made entirely out of a silk like materiel! Lovely is it not?"

"Oh, thank you Kanaya."

"No problem Aradia dear. Now then, for Nepeta and Equius, I have an adorable matching set! Leigon gets sweet and baggy green sleepwear, while Equius gets a black sleeveless with the same pattern as Neps on his pants! Only his is in his dark blue blood color!"

"Oh boy! Those look comfy!" Nepeta clapped.

"Yes...sleeveless is a good idea..." Said Eqius. "...considering my multiple night sweats make my arms burn with heat..."

"You are welcome times two! Ah...here is yours Gamzee! You get the indigo pajamas with the baggy spotted shorts and the plain sleeveless shirt. Hopefully it is not too big for you, all they had was a larger size than your own."

"It's cool sister!" Gamzee smiled. "I'm just glad you were motherfuckin' kind enough to get them for me!" He said as he received his clothes.

"For Feferi, a short cut tyrian purple shirt, with a lovely see through hip scarf surrounding a comfy swim wear bottom style. Eridan, you get a soft violet robe. For Sollux, a baggy white shirt with bumble bee pj pants-"

"You would...wouldn't you?" The captor sighed. Kanaya only continued.

"Tavros, I was kind enough to get you fairy shorts!" She smiled.

"Oh wow, thank you!"

"Indeed. Anyway...Terezi gets a black shirt with red shorts and dragon slippers..."

"Oh boy!" The Pyrope grinned.

"Vriska, I got you an eight ball sleeveless shirt and baggy blue patterned pants."

Serket seemed too distracted because she was watching the Nick Cage movie that John got for her with her headphones on. So she did not reply.

"Well that's ungrateful. Oh well...as for me..." Kanaya got out the final pajama wear. "A beautiful short sleeved dress with a lovely over shirt to match. Ah. Wonderful. I'll give Karkat his later because he is sleeping. Have fun with your new pajamas everyone! And with that! I bid all good night." She too was apparently very tired, because her usual towering demeanor collapsed and curled up into a ball to sleep. She didn't even have the chance to put on her pj's yet!

"Equius?" Nepeta said to her moirail as she curled up in her new pajamas next to him.

"Yes Nepeta?"

"I sure hope that we can stay with the humans sometime in the near future. I miss having a home to stay..."

"I see..." Equius replied softly. "But...wouldn't you say that it is better to believe that home is where the people you care about lie?"

"Oh dear..." Said Nepeta. "I never thought of it that way. Where did you learn to talk like that Equ?"

He was silent for a moment.

"...My little hoof beasts?"

"Hee hee! You're so funny! I'm glad that you are my moirail." The girl snuggled up to his arm, not caring how sweaty he got about it this time. The older male sighed, then soon fell asleep.

Hours passed, and soon, everyone had fallen into a very deep slumber.

_"BZZHT! Message for you. BZZHT!"_

Eridan flopped over on his side and grabbed his phone. It was another text from Isabella.

"Dear cod wwoman...I really like you, but you talk far too much..." He sighed. "Howw do I evven get a connection wwith you here? I'm in the middle of a fuckin' cavve..." He grumbled as he shut off his phone. His head then twitched to look up. Something was rustling around in the darkness.

"Fef? Is that you? I'm not in the glubbin' mood for your pranks...it's the middle of the fuckin' night..." The thing leaped off into a tunnel. "Wwait...that isn't Fef..." He slowly got up and put on the slippers that came with the outfit Kanaya bought for him, then with that, he picked up a flashlight and headed towards the tunnel in which the shadow ran away into.

"Hello? Kar? Gam? This is wweird...I'vve nevver seen this tunnel before...it's vvery echoey..."

He heard something scamper off in the distance, and pointed his flashlight towards the sound, only to get a brief glance at yet ANOTHER shadow. It was then that he heard a large wall of rocks collapsing over the entrance to the tunnel. He had been trapped.

"OH COD!" The fish boy ran to the entrance and tried to dig his way out, but to no success. "This is NOT good!" Multiple shadows continued to loom around him, and the only thing Eridan could think of to get out at this point, was to explore the tunnel further in. So that's exactly what he started to do.

"This is completely STUPID! Wwhat if I'm trapped in here forevver?" He said as he walked further into the cave. "I doubt anyone wwill really care to look for me...wwhy did I evven come in here in the first fuckin' place? I am such a dunce..." As he was exploring, he noticed several different strange markings on the walls, and squinted at them distractedly.

"Noww wwhat the cod are these? Some sort of description or some fi-" When pressing his fingers up against the wall, the floor beneath him started to crumble, and he fell right through the ground! Everything blacked out.

Eridan's eyes fluttered open and he looked around for a brief moment. Besides placing his hand on his head, he didn't dare move an inch. His forehead hurt like hell.

"Wwhat is goin' on here...?" The boy tried to sit up, but with very little success. He felt as though he wasn't the only one in the dark undergrounds of the cave, and he was right, because peering over him was a set of glowing white eyes.

"GAAAH!" He sat up quickly from where he was laying down, accidentally bumping heads with the creature hard. This caused the sea dweller to fall down again because of his head already hurting, but ended up KILLING the stranger. How that works, I have no idea, but it did.

"WWHAT THE FUCK? THAT HURT YOU SON OF A-" He paused after turning on his flashlight again in surprise. The Ampora boy figured it was some sort of imp looking at him, but no. The body laying on the ground before him looked much different. They were coal skinned with lanky features. MUCH taller than an imp could ever get.

"Um...are you ok? I didn't mean to krill you or nothin', just setting that straight. Oh wwhat am I doin', he's dead! They are obviously not gonna hear me! I'm such a fool." He wiped off his now dust covered robe and maintained his balance. Blood was dripping down over his forehead and nose, but at this point, he didn't seem to care.

"Is there anyone else in here?" He called out more, but all he heard in return was a loud echo. "Fuck..."

The flashlight flickered over the rest of the underground cave. There didn't appear to be anything significant there, just another tunnel entrance. There seemed to be a lot of these here. Bats flew out of the deep hole, and scared the shit out of Eridan. He flapped his arms around trying to get them away, all the while screaming like a frightened child. Then once they were gone, he breathed in heavily, and got his guts about him to go inside. It was pitch black, so he was lucky that his flashlight still worked.

"Hello?" He called out again. There was no response yet a second time. "I wwonder wwhere that guy came from anywway...he looked like a Dersite..."

A small stream of light came out through some rocks not too far away, and this got the sea dweller quite excited.

"Oh good, that may be a wway out..." He went towards it, and sure enough, there was a tiny hole in the wall with some moonlight streaming through. The boy picked up a sharp rock, and started to make the exit bigger. So far it could only fit barely even his finger tip inside. Soon, he managed to get the rubble to crumble away just enough for him crawl in, and when he did, he was shocked at what he saw.

There were wires everywhere, and broken abandoned tanks filled with barely any water at all. Some dew was dripping from the ceiling, and the light that he saw coming through the hole in the wall was actually from the collapsing roof over top of him. From there he was able to see the moon at its fullest.

"My cod! This...this is amazin'!" He said excitedly. "Did I just enter another laboratory or somefin? I have to tell the others! Oh...wwait...I can't...the ceiling is too high...HOWW THE FUCK DO I GET OUTTA HERE? KARKAAAAAAAAAAAT!"

Feferi jumped from her sleeping bag and looked around. She knew she heard something in her sleep, but how long ago that it happened was beyond her, because sometimes when one is sleeping, you can never actually keep good track of time. Sollux woke up too.

"What wath that?" He asked after putting on his glasses.

"You heard that too? It sounded like something collapsed inside the cave or somefin...glub." Commented Feferi.

"Do you think we should wake everyone up?" The captor asked softly.

"I'm not sure...does everyone look ok from what you can sea?"

"Yeah...I think so..."

"Wait!" Feferi pointed to where Eridan was sleeping. "Where is Eridan?"

"Not sure..." Sollux replied. "Do you think he went to, you know, do hith busineth?"

Feferi twitched.

"I hope you mean urinating."

"I did! What were YOU thinking?"

"Ew...uh...nothing." The girl shivered. "Anyway, we should seriously wake Karkat up now, if Eridan has gone missing..."

"Ok. Good luck with that."

"What, you're not going to help me?"

"Are you kidding? I'm not getting my head bitten off by KK! He'th a thwinger when it cometh to waking up."

"Oh glub...fine, I'll do it."

With that, the sea dwelling girl got up, and walked towards the sleeping Karkat with a hint of nervousness on her face. She nudged him on the shoulder.

"Um...Karkat...? ...Karkat?"

The boy said nothing.

"Sigh...KARKAT!" She flicked his forehead.

"No crab dad...I don't want the fucking tuna salad..." He mumbled as he gripped onto Fef's ankle with both of his arms.

The girl twitched.

"Um...Karkat, it's me, Feferi. Let go of my ankle please."

"No muffin face...I want the fucking donut...give it to me now...merp..."

Feferi face palmed, then sighed deeply as she started to drag Karkat's limp body around the floor of the cave because of his tight grasp around her leg.

"Sollux! This isn't working!" She complained.

"Oh. Shake him around a little. He'll wake up thooner or later."

"OH WILL YOU JUST GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME ALREADY?" The girl whispered loudly.

"Fine, fine...I'm up." He walked towards her, and poked Karkat on the nose. "Hey, KK, wake up, you're having luthid dreamth again."

Karkat finally woke up, then jumped back whenever he realized that he was clinging onto Feferi's leg.

"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WAKE ME UP FOR? You guys better have a good fucking explanation!"

"We do!" Said Feferi. "Eridan has gone missing, and not too long ago we heard something sound like a cave in from another tunnel area or something. I'm kind of worried about him."

"Ugh...can't I just have ONE night of peace? No. Of course not. My life SUCKS." Karkat ranted. "Ok...we'll go look for him...but he better not have strayed too far. I can't fucking believe this..."

The three gathered their flashlights. Karkat's ranting seemed to wake up a few of the other trolls too, and they perked their heads up in somewhat of an odd interest.

"Karkitty...?" Nepeta purred tiredly while rubbing her eyes. "Where are you three going?"

"Eridan decided it was a good idea to explore more of this FUCKING cave...so we're going to search for him." Karkat replied grumpily.

"Oh...can I come too? Maybe?" Laying next to her, Equius was still asleep.

"What about your moirail? Wouldn't Equius throw some kind of STRONG fucking fit about it?"

"Not if I come back soon...besides Karkitty, maybe if I come along, we can find Mr. Ampura faster. Right?"

"Ugh. I suppose so. Ok, you can come. But if you get hurt, I'm not getting beaten up for it by your fucking body building sweat bag over there."

"I puromise I will be of good company." The kitten troll smiled.

"Well..." Said Sollux. "Let'th get a move on then. I wanna get back here before morning cometh along."

"Yeah." Feferi joined. "Come on guys..."

And with that, they entered the dark obis.

The night drew on. This was going to be a long one. At the Strider house, all was calm. Dave was sleeping away in the smuppet PJs his brother got for him, and the nightlight that he had been too embarrassed to talk about with his friends started to flicker some in the darkness. He was very comfortable. Perhaps even dreaming about the "foreign" students and how he was going to smash them into the dust when it came to that rap off him and Gamzee were talking about. He felt a nudge on his shoulder.

"Lil bro." The voice whispered. "Wake up. It's important."

Dave opened his eyes to see Dirk staring over him standing at the side of his bed and yawned.

"What's up...?" He said after finally sitting up. He wore his sunglasses to sleep, so they were a little bit crooked from him moving around so much in his slumber.

"It's about those pictures Dave. Come with me and I'll show you." His brother replied.

"Bluh...fine..." The younger Strider rubbed his eyes, then got up and stretched before briefly adjusting his glasses. "So it's important huh?"

"Yeah. Come on."

Dirk lead Dave into his room where the computer had been on for the past few hours of the evening. There was a few empty boxes of candy and soda pops spread around when they finally made it to the lap top, so it appeared that Dirk had been fixated on these photos for a while now. The older brother sat down.

"So what are we looking at here?" Dave asked sleepily as he looked over Dirk's shoulder. All he saw were a bunch of scattered photos on the screen and some weird dancing pony icons in the lower corner.

"It's what I found lil bro." Said Dirk. "Those weird lights that we got before with the embodiment inside them, well, there was more too it than just that. Check it out."

"It's...a woman?" Dave observed.

"Sure is. My...other self may know more about it than me...but what I DO know is...those kids I met aren't really safe."

"Wait, there's ANOTHER one of you?" The younger brother exclaimed. "Man, I can hardly deal with one. And what kids?"

"That's right. Another me, and another you. But I think the other you is dead or something. Maybe the other Roxy will know something about it too...as for the kids...ok listen, before I was being interviewed the one day at that abandoned warehouse looking thing, I met these children. And well, I knew right away that these kids weren't exactly human."

"Really?" Said Dave. "Then what were they?"

"Aliens Dave. Troll aliens. I learned about them a while back when I was contacted by self number two. Guess he managed to hack a video into my system or something. But anyway, yeah, these guys are in a lot of danger if this alien woman is who I think she is."

"Hey. I know where this is going." Strider bro jr. said in deep thought. "I bet you're talking about those foreign kids at our school. We hung out with them yesterday at the mall, which is why I was late getting home. Remember me texting you about that picnic at John's house? Well, it was us and them. Took some notes too...they aren't human, that's for sure. Knew that after I saw the one bleed purple."

Dirk nodded.

"Then we must be talking about the same kids. They hang out with each other a lot right? How many are there?"

"About twelve I think." Answered Dave.

"Yup. That's them all right."

"Sweet. So we both know them then."

"Yeah..." Dirk thought to himself for a long while. "And now, I think I have a task for you..."

Deep into the crevices of the troll inhabited cave, Eridan was still trying to find his way out of his predicament. However in the mean time, he was also admiring the abandoned equipment left behind from who knows where. Shadows lurked in every corner, and the only audible noise was the drippings of broken water tanks and an occasionally bat flap. Eyes were on him from each end, and right in the center of this odd cavern, looked like some sort of transportalizer pad. He turned around and noticed this, looking at it carefully.

"Wweird..." He said to himself in blue tinted darkness. "Wwonder wwhere that leads to..." The sea dweller went to take a closer look.

It didn't seem active; it actually looked kind of cracked in some places too, so there was no telling if it worked or not. He stepped on top hoping that it would get him somewhere other than that musty old cave, but nothing happened, and he became quite disappointed.

"Damn...I wwas hopin' it wwould wwork. Oh cod! But I can't livve here forevver! Oh wwhy couldn't Kar hear me? Doesn't matter...nobody cares about me. I'm a glubbin sea dwwealer and-" In the midst of his rant, something seemed to spark on the transportalizer pad, causing Eridan to quickly step off. A blob of light appeared, until finally, about ten imps were summoned and scurried out into several dark places in the cave. Once again, this caused Eridan to scream like a little girl.

"Th-that must be wwhere all the imps are commin' from! I guess it doesn't wwork from here though...strange. Oh I sea! Then that must be wwhy they keep clutterin up our sleepin' space! It all seems to make sense noww..."

The strange eyes from every direction continued to peer at Eridan as though he was some sort of attraction. Odd how blank he was about it though, at least until he finally heard some rocks scattering about that sounded far too heavy for a regular imp to move. He looked around swiftly, taking note of every little thing that he could see, which wasn't much unless it was directly underneath the moon's light. There were walls everywhere, so no way could he just run to get out of there. In order to get out, he would have to climb on top of something to get through the ceiling, which wasn't really one of his strong points.

"Hello? Oh cod...I feel like millions of tiny eyes are just starin' at me. Wwait! I can get out the wway I came in!"

He tried to run for the exit that he had entered, but ended up tripping over right in front of it instead. Then when he looked up, he noticed the giant creature standing there before him with dark skin and glowing white eyes. His scream could be heard all the way across skaia.


	13. Episode 12: Warriors of Alternia

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 12

WARRIORS OF ALTERNIA

The shadow hovered over Eridan like a giant mass of darkness. He had nothing on him to defend himself with and well, let's just say that he's never really learned karate either, so fish boy was pretty much screwed. Surely he screamed and try to run away from it, but there was nowhere to turn! He was blocked by the wall on the other side.

"What was that?" Feferi gasped. The three trolls searching for Ampora were still making their way over to the tunnel to find him.

"You're kidding right?" Sollux sighed. "I know that thcream anywhere. ERIDAN!" He shouted. "WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

The scream repeated some, followed by a few whimpers from behind a great wall of rubble before them. Fef started to lift a few rocks, trying to make her way passed the barricade.

"Oh! I see what you're doing!" Nepeta smiled. She leaped over to help her, and pawed at the rocks as well.

"FF, do you really think you can lift all of those rocks away?" Sollux asked with a sigh. The girl looked angry, and continued to dig.

"Well then why don't you two help us out?" She asked in aggravation.

Sollux sighed tiredly.

"All right...come on KK, let'th dig..." He didn't seem pleased, but if Feferi was so emotional about it, he would offer his assistance.

"Bluh! Fine..." Karkat grunted. Then he too joined the digging spree.

In the darkened room, Eridan had managed to get a piece of glass from one of the large empty containers, and use that as some kind of weapon, but the creature was fast, and nearly got his head as it stabbed some sort of shiny metal object at the boy's cranium. Fortunately he managed to dodge and turn around.

"All right beast! I challenge you! Wwith my...fuckin' tiny dagger of...truth..." He never realized how small it was until he actually took a glance at the thing, but hey, it was better than nothing, right? At least now he could reflect the moon off of this glass and see what exactly he was up against. It appeared to be another Dersite, only a bigger one, with a tougher exterior. This was going to be a trip.

"He mutht be down that hole." The three other trolls had managed to make their way through the rubble, and Sollux noticed a collapse in the middle of the great tunnel floor.

Feferi turned and spotted the LARGE ASS HOLE in the ground. How she missed it, both Sollux and Karkat were clueless.

"Fucking WOW. Only ERIDAN would fall through the fucking ground like that. How the fuck are we going to get down there?" The Vantas boy exclaimed.

"Well...I don't know and I don't care! We have to hurry or he might get hurt!" Feferi exclaimed.

"Thenthe when did you care what happenth to-"

Sollux was not able to finish his sentence because Feferi had already leaped gracefully inside of the pit. He looked over inside, and saw her running away. A heavy sigh escaped his lips.

"Ugh...Come on KK, NP. Let'th go." He said as he grabbed Karkat's arm and began to pull without really asking his permission first.

"WAIT JUST A MINUTE SOLLUX! I-" Vantas was swiftly pulled inside, while Nepeta voluntarily jumped in.

After the three landed rather oddly, they dusted off their pants and looked around. Feferi didn't seem to be anywhere in site, at least until she said something to them.

"Guys! Over here! There's another hole and...oh my gosh! Eridan is on the other side! Come on!" Unfortunately she was unable to pass through however much excitement she possessed, because it was blocked by multiple black figures. Though a few imps managed to escape the hole between the taller figure's legs. "Oh dear...what's going on?" She tried to peek through the madness, and only got glances of a shouting Eridan inside. It looked as though he was trying to fight something.

"Hee hee!" Nepeta swished her hands around and made them look like paws. She was in one of the cutest poses. "AC will take care of this one!" She smiled happily. Then without any real warning, she scurried over on all fours and burst between the Dersite's legs, twirling around multiple times before running into the one attacking Eridan.

"EEK!" She squealed when she bumped her head against the black figures leg. "Ok Mister Stabby, show me your moves~"

The figure turned around slowly, then narrowed its eyes at the girl. This gave Eridan the chance to leap on the thing's back and attempt to cut him at the neck. That didn't go over too well though, and turned into some kind of bad balancing act.

"I'vve got him in a choke hold Nep! Run wwhile you still-" The large Dersite stopped him mid sentence by throwing him up against the wall. This guy was strong.

"Oh dear. Tempurr tempurr!" Nepeta smiled. "You should be thrown in time out! But there's no real corners in here are there? That's purrfictly ok, I'll just make some fur you!" It was amazing how happy the girl was when she said this. She seemed QUITE excited. Probably because she was disobeying Equius's orders to be violent towards anyone. But this was for her friends! So in a way, it was ok, because it was all in defense!

"Wanna bet?" The strong figure said in a low voice. He too seemed rather excited. "We have been staying underground for many moons training, and working for _her_. She is the new Queen. And will be the new Queen of this universe as well. We have been planning for this day..."

"Oooh." Nepeta said in near shock. "So your not just any old imp are you?"

"I was never an imp to begin with. They are low creatures. No. I am not an imp. I am MUCH...stronger than that." He slowly reached over, and started to pick Nepeta up by her hair. She struggled, but could not get away. "In fact. I could crush you in an instant..."

"YOU KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF HER YOU SHIT BLOODED FUCK!" Karkat came sprinting in! Able to burst through the blockade of figures as though they were light weight bowling pins! He attempted to leap and kick the guy's face in, but was grabbed at the ankle instead. The extremely strong Dersite laughed loudly.

"You really think you twerps can defeat me? Ha! What a load. No...you're going to have to do a lot better than that!"

Feferi and Sollux watched from outside, completely clueless about what to do to help their friends. It was frightening.

"We can't just sit here Sollux...we have to help them!" Feferi whispered to the boy squatted down next to her.

"I really don't know...we can't jutht go in the way thothe two did...we'll get caught for sure. We're gonna need thome back up."

"But how are you going to do that? Do you know how to get back up that hole again?" The sea dwelling girl asked while grabbing onto Sollux's shirt in concern.

"I'll figure it out. In the mean time, thit tight and don't move from where you are unleth it involveth making it to thome plathe thafer." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Thtay alive Feferi."

The girl exhaled softly, and her eyebrows turned upward.

"I should be saying that to you..." She whimpered.

"Don't worry. Jutht let me go tho that we can fix all of thith."

"Ok..." She whispered. "I'm counting on you."

Sollux nodded, then swiftly turned around and ran for help, leaving Feferi with her hand extended out to him with a worrying expression on her grey face. She looked back through the hole, but stayed hidden in the darkness as the others tried to make their way out of this situation. It was awful having to sit there and watch while she could do absolutely nothing for them.

"GET YOUR MUDDY HANDS OFF ME YOU FUCKING PRICK BASTARD!" Karkat struggled, meanwhile Ampora was still trying to get up again after that blunt hit to the wall. Nepeta was unable to speak, because with the bigness of the Dersite's hand, it was beginning to engulf her entire head.

"Heh heh. You're all talk aren't you? So who should I down first? You, or this little kitten?"

"YOU DONT FUCKING LAY A FINGER ON HER! YOU HEAR ME!" Karkat tried to struggle, but every time he did so, his leg twisted around his ankle where the Dersite was taking hold, and it hurt like hell.

"Oh, will you look at that. I've already got a hand full of her skull. Looks like it would be more torture for you, little boy, if I killed her off right in front of your very eyes." The Dersite's hand gripped harder around the girl's head, and there were some audible squeezing noises coming from his knuckles. She yelped and whimpered, but the sound was muffled by his large palms.

Karkat's teeth clenched. NOW, he was PISSED.

"I SAID...don't you...MOTHER...FUCKING...hurt her! You sick...NOOK SUCKING...imbecile..."

With his hands both being free, the Vantas boy managed to summon his sickle from his well kept Sylledex and lift himself high enough to completely chop the Dersite's other arm clean off! It fell to the ground with Nepeta's head underneath it. She struggled free, and the strong Dersite screamed in a rage, letting go of Karkat in the process. He landed on his ass.

"Karkitty!" The kitten girl ran up and knelt down to hugged Karkat's shoulder after he was let go, and this time, he didn't seem to mind it as much.

"You ok Nepeta...?" He asked with a huff. Nepeta nodded. "GOOD! Now never fucking do that again! Ok? You'd be worthless to us if you were dead."

"I'm so glad you weren't hurt at all Karkitty!" Nepeta smiled. Her face was bruised up from the grip of the Dersite, but other than that, all seemed well.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Eridan started to finally sprint from his collapsing ground with the same tiny glass object gripped in his palm. He then leaped up onto the Dersite's back and had a good hold around its neck with his left arm. "DIE YOU GLUBBIN' FIEND!" He shouted in a rage. The sharp object in his hand then thrashed forward and into the large individual's neck, this time, quite successfully.

Again the beast screamed! He lifted Eridan off of his back and threw him yet a _second_ time into the ground, only Ampora was able to stop himself from running into the wall by using his feet and hands to balance himself. It was amazing how his night slippers were still on.

"HOW DARE YOU!" The Dersite bellowed. "I AM THE LEADER OF THIS UNDERGROUND WORLD! I AM THE ALPHA! SHE PUT **ME** IN CHARGE!" Despite his arm being cut off, and the sharpness of the shard stuck deep into his neck, he was still too strong, and was still able to fight.

"God DAMN! And you said I talk a lot!" Karkat shouted. He then steadied himself on his feet and wiped his nose, ready to fight even more. "Come on Nepeta. Lets show this guy that we aren't to be messed with!"

"Hee hee! Okie dokie Karkitty!"

"Not so fast little wrigglers! We're playing MY game now!" The beast snapped his thick fingers, and multiple other smaller Dersites surrounded him, each with large spears and knives.

"Wwe're out numbered!" Paniced the highblooded Ampora. However the other two were not as concerned.

"Ampura! We have to keep trying!" Nepeta said confidently. Her focus was on the Dersite that were now circling around them.

"Don't attack until I say go..." Said Vantas. He held his hand up to the others to ready them for the signal. Nepeta nodded, prancing back and forth in tiny foot motions as though ready for some kind of boxing match.

"Waaaait..." Continued Karkat.

Eridan was getting impatient, but did as he was told. He crouched down, swaying his body back and forth. The enemies were still closing in on them. The red blood's eyes narrowed.

"GO!"

The three BURST out of their stances as though they were just at a race car pit stop and had to keep up with the race! Karkat went for the leader's ankles, and Nepeta leaped up on top of his head to get behind him and attack the other enemies standing there. She was QUITE graceful in her movements, and managed to claw at many of the Dersite fiends, killing them off. As for Eridan, he kept his bloodied glass shard in hand and swished around like no tomorrow, taking the heads of his victims along with it.

Feferi gasped from the peek hole, squeezing her fists in excitement. She wanted SO badly to join in! And what would it hurt if she did? She had a weapon! Her trident was all READY to do a little stabby shit here and there, so why not? But what about Sollux? Didn't he tell her not to? Oh what the hey! She was all FOR a little action!

"EEEE! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" She squealed with a grin. Then after summoning Ψdon's Entente, she leaped into the room when the entrance was no longer blocked and twirled around, taking many Dersite as her victims also. She ended up with her back against Eridan's.

"Fef! Wwhat are you doin' here?" He asked without really looking at her. Actually, he only took one glance and knew right away who it was.

"I came to help you!" She said in return, also avoiding eye contact as they were back to back.

"Wwell you shouldn't a! I can take care of my self!"

Feferi rolled her eyes and replied sarcastically.

"_Obviously._ Eridan! You're an idiot!"

After she said this, the two leaped away from each other and began their attack on the multitude of enemies after them. The largest of them all was still conducting every attack move, and it seemed like the more that were destroyed, the more of them returned to fight.

"There's a lot of these fuckers!" Karkat complained as he bashed one upside the head. Nepeta nodded from not too far away.

"Getting tired Karkitty?" She grinned. The girl seemed to be enjoying herself quite a lot.

The leader of the Dersite then took note of the new troll that had joined them.

"EVERYONE HALT!" He screamed loudly. The others put away their weapons and stopped completely, eying the young princess as she had already apparently assassinated many of them. "Empress? Is that...you?"

Feferi turned around, her hair flowing behind her as she realized that everyone had stopped because of her.

"Wait one moment..." The large beast of a leader said while examining her. "You are the one by which the Empress speaks of!" His eyes narrowed. "We must kill you at all costs! She will be thrilled! MEN! YOU SHALL BE REWARDED! THIS IS THE DAY WE UNITE AND BREAK THE BOND BETWEEN ANCESTORS!"

Hearing this, the crowd of Dersite cheered a warrior like cry and remanded their weapons. What was said seemed to add more fuel to the already brewing concoction. They began to charge!

Weapons clashed! Rocks tumbled! Their strength was increasing ten fold! The trolls were in trouble, but the four kept fighting anyway. They were doing quite well for a a while actually, but of course something had to go down from there. Feferi was in a tussle between several different Dersite, and one managed to grab at her arm. Fortunately for her she was able to stab them away, but he wasn't the only one there. She was starting to be piled on top of by her enemies.

"FEF!" Eridan reached out to her, but was too far away to get them off of her. Not only that, but he was in the middle of fighting off yet another enemy Dersite.

From underneath the pile however, a great light poured out through the cracks between the many Dersite arms and legs and they burst off like a bomb! Feferi was no noob when it came to manning her weapon, and she was back in a fighting stance in no time.

"What's wrong Eridan? Were you worried about me or something? Hee hee!" She laughed confidently.

"Wwell...NO! I just...oh cod! Fef! Look out!"

There was another enemy behind her, a smaller one, but one that was slick. It slashed at her as though to stab at her throat, but this also countered as a distraction as he managed to take her weapon while she was still in shock.

"Awww, the little mermaid fell for it, didn't she?" It smiled with a snake like voice.

"Get your dirty pawws off a her!" Eridan warned.

The slender Dersite only cackled. There were others that joined him to pin her to the wall.

"Shall we off her head for you?" A shorter one said with somewhat of a cockney twang.

"Allow me! I want to be praised by her Majesty!" Yet a THIRD Dersite exclaimed! Sooner or later this turned into an incredible tussle between the two of them while the one still taking hold of Feferi looked shocked to see that in the mean time, she had escaped!

"Don't you EVER touch me AGAIN!" The girl's voice screamed as she stole her weapon back and stabbed the slender one in the chest. He died on the SPOT. "Besides." She huffed with a hair flip. "You smell like old cheese!"

"Things sure are getting rough!" Nepeta said with a simple dazed expression on her face while she was strangling an enemy with her legs. He collapsed, and she leaped off. Pretty satisfied with what she had done so far. "But that's ok! Me-OW!" The girl flickered her hands in front of her like paws again, and another Dersite tried to attack her. It was a little one with a large head.

"I WILL END YOU!" It said in a high pitched voice. After she turned around to see who it was, Nepeta's eyes grew bright with adorable green color and she squealed.

"AWWWWW! YOU'RE SO CUUUTE!" She said while doing an adorable little step in place dance. She ran over to it and gave it a hug. A very TIGHT hug. It was actually having trouble breathing, but she didn't seem to notice, and continued hugging it with a face in dream mode. "Nyaaaaaaaaaaw!"

Karkat was put down many times by the attacking foes, but always got back up again to slash his sickle in their chests and throats. It was about time they started to simmer down some! But unfortunately for him and the rest of the trolls, things were continuously going down hill. They could only fight for so long. Sooner or later Feferi was caught again, and this time by more powerful Dersite. She strained to break free, but could not.

"Little girl!" The leader spoke to her with narrowed eyes, still bleeding at the stub that use to be an arm. "This is your last day."

"NO!" Eridan shouted. He reached towards her, but was barricaded back by another armed crowd. Turned out that they had been gradually circulating around the girl this entire time. So even Nepeta and Karkat were blocked as well.  
But right when things seemed desperate, an immense crumble was heard from not to far away, until it engulfed the entire cave. Nepeta's ears perked up.

"NEPETA!" A voice screamed from outside the hall, until Equius shattered the entrance complete. Sollux was behind him, along with the rest of the now angry faced trolls in pajamas.

"EQU!" The kitten girl clapped. It seemed that his presence gave her an extra boost of strength as she plummeted through the Dersite blocking her way.

"No! Nepeta! Don't come towards me! Save Feferi's-" She clung to his head. "life..."

"Oh right!" She jumped off. "You fellas shouldn't mess with her! Because if you do, you're going to have to go through usfirst!" The girl grinned. She put her hands on her hips, and the Dersite just stared as there was now a gigantic hole behind them that Equius had left behind. The trolls lifted their arms and shouted their own warrior cry! (Even though Gamzee was sort of late about it. They all looked at him as though he had several heads.) Finally, the leader Dersite started to bawl with laughter.

"THESE are your SAVIORS?" He said to the female sea dweller. "A cripple boy, a fashion designer? Ha! They should be easy to break."

"Hey!" Nepeta squealed. "Never underestimate our might!"

"Yes!" Kanaya agreed. "And I am no simple fashion designer!" She grinned. "I have a chainsaw!" She revved it up some, showing them that she meant business.

"Sollux!" Feferi glanced in the yellow blood's direction. "You came back!"

Sollux nodded briefly, then bared his sharp teeth at the enemy leader. "We're here to thave Feferi, tho jutht shut up and fight! I don't want this to tire uth too much!"

The great being laughed, and readied himself in position.

"Ha! Now you speak in words I can understand! ATTACK MY WARRIORS! FOR THE EMPRESS!"

The coal colored men ran forth, and once again began fighting with immense power! But they weren't the only ones ready for battle. As Nepeta said, the trolls were NOT to be underestimated! Their fighting styles were skilled! Not only that but they managed to bring Eridan his weapon also. He was ecstatic!

"HAA! My precious babyyy~ ALRIGHT FIENDS! WWHO WWANTS SOME OF THIS!" He grinned, and shot multiple Dersite to their deaths!

The loudness, the stabs and slashes, all of which continued on into the night until Equius began, in a fit of rage, to literally bring the entire cave to the ground! Rocks tumbled, and walls fell, crushing most of the enemies in its path.

"I HEARD YOU YOU...YOU...MUCK BLOODED SHIT!" Equius growled as he neared the leader. He seemed to look bigger than usual, but of course this was only an illusion, as he was still smaller than the gigantic Dersite enemy. Most of the trolls gasped in shock as Equius had...SAID A SWEAR! Gasp. He grabbed the beastly man by his throat.

"HOW DARE YOU MESS WITH MY MOIRAIL!" His hand squeezed. "SHE IS MY...MY ONLY TRUE FRIEND!" It crushed even harder. "NOW DIE!" Equius's entire body rippled with strength as all could hear the snapping of the Dersite's neck. The atmosphere was becoming cold, and lightning flashed in the sky as the beast fell to his death. Then as the rain came down, the trolls wen't completely silent. Their battle was threw. Now all that was left was them, the rubble, and the many corpses spread throughout the ground.


	14. Episode 13: New Homes Indeed

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 13 PART 1

NEW HOMES INDEED

By the time the rain cleared, morning had dawned upon the twelve dirtied up trolls. They were slightly damaged, but still pretty well off. Each were quite surprised at Equius for his odd behavior in trying to protect his moirail from the obvious enemies, so they stared at him in shock. He looked back at them, and scratched the back of his head nervously. Then not too far away, a large mound of rocks crumbled to the ground, revealing an oddly serious faced Dirk. He looked at them all as though they had fifteen heads.

"Woah..." He said, his arms were filled with food supplies and the like. "I came here to warn you about something and hand out more food shit, but I think you all get the picture. What happened?"

"Long FUCKING story." The dust covered Vantas replied with a huff.

"Uh huh..." Nepeta agreed. "We don't know what to do now. I don't think that this cave is very capable as a living quarters any longer though, that's fur sure."

"Oh GREAT!" Karkat complained. "I hope this doesn't mean we have to take up that old lady's offer in housing us. What a bunch of FUCKING BULL SHIT!"

"Uh...I hope you mean something else by what you say, because, that was almost very nearly offensive." Tavros stated from a few feet away.

"Guh! Shut up Tavros!"

Dirk's eyes shifted around to watch the trolls argue, and then finally said something.

"What kind of offer was that 'old lady' talking about exactly?" He asked while adjusting his specs. Karkat sighed.

"I dunno." He began. "It was John's Lusus or something. She said that if ever we need to be housed, we can stay with her. And that Rose chick's Lusus agreed."

"Seems to make sense to me. Good to have such great people to offer something like that without any real hesitation. You guys are lucky." Dirk put the duffel bags he was carrying down and sat on them to think. "Well...I mean, if you guys really need it, I think that we could fit a few of you in our tiny place as well. Of course, it is up to you. Either that or sleep in the cold, and with those imps and that woman wondering around, it isn't really something I would advise."

"Woman?" Karkat asked. "What woman?"

"I'll explain later. Right now, lets worry about getting you guys cleaned up and ready to go. For now we can chill at my place. Hopefully it won't be too cramped in there." He paused, and glanced at Terezi who was now licking his shoulder. "Woah. Hey. Personal space there lady."

"Oh I'm fine." She said. "Besides, you taste gooood."

"A little creepy, but ok. Whatever." He stood up and lifted the bags over his shoulder. "Anyway, if you guys are gonna take up this shelter offer, I suggest you follow me. Just be warned, I think my brother is still asleep, and as cool as he usually is, he's not when it comes to morning time. So you know, try not to wake him up. For the sake of EVERYONE. Part of the reason why he refused to come up here for me I'm sure."

The trolls looked around, exchanging glances as if to ask each other if this was a good idea. The cave was literally obliterated, so that wasn't going to work out very well. And obviously they knew nothing about the forest to live in there. They had no choice.

"Fine." Karkat said. "We'll go."

"Good choice." Said Dirk. "But we better go soon. You guys shouldn't be revealed too much. Nice horns by the way."

"GAH!" Karkat yelped. He had nearly forgotten that everyone was still in troll form. He adjusted his watch. Luckily it wasn't damaged too much in the cave in.

"Hey. It's fine. I already knew you guys were aliens. But you may have the right idea in doing that for now. Again, it would be bad if you were recognized out here. Who knows who could be watching us. Or what." The Strider's eyes narrowed. He felt like there were eyes everywhere, watching. And there was. The shadows crept back into the darkness.

The entire time Dirk was leading the trolls to his apartment suite, it seemed like Nepeta couldn't stop asking questions. She was quite the curious kitten.

At the outside of the building: "Ooh! This is a really big hive! Someone really important must have built it right?"

In the main entrance: "Who's that guy? Why is he dressed like that? Is he a high blood or something? Why does he have pretty lacy things on his shoulder? Can I play with those?"

On the elevator: "Woooah! This is really cool! What do all those buttons do? Can I press them? Uh oh...I think we are stuck. How many of us are in here any way? One...two...three...f-"

In the hallway once the elevator was finally rescued: "Oh boy! Is this the place where you live? Do all these rooms belong to you? This is so exciting I could burst!"

"PLEASE DO!" Karkat flailed at her, and the girl shrunk on the inside.

"M-mew."

"Ugh..." The Vantas boy looked away and poked her forehead, as for comfort, that was about all she was going to get from him, but that was fine with her. She ended up shutting up because of how hard she was blushing. The green was obvious to see underneath her current pinkish human skin.

"Ok guys, we're finally here." Dirk commented as he unlocked the door to his humble abode. It was small, but it had enough space for at least a family of four to live in anyway. So all was well. "Now the question stands." He said. "Can we all fit inside the living room? Man...this shit is like a clown car."

"Honk." Gamzee, (who was now standing next to him), replied with a goofy grin.

"Oh. Right. No offense or anything."

"None taken my brother."

When they all managed to cram themselves inside, things were not as bad as expected. Actually, the place was kind of nice. Every troll seemed quite curious sitting down. Three sat on the couch, and more sat on the floor. Eridan, very LOUDLY tried to claim the only comfy chair in the room, but was lifted off of it by Equius so that Nepeta could sit there instead. She was a very happy girl. Eridan pouted in a corner instead. Inadvertently though, Sollux sat next to him and sighed.

"Uh. Yeeeah. Hi Eridan. I jutht kind of that here cauthe there wath no room anywhere elthe. I'm sure as fuck though that you don't mind it. Right?"

"Wwell. No." The fish boy replied. "Not for noww anywway."

There was a tiny corner table sitting not too far away from where Kanaya was standing, and on top of that, was a nicely framed picture of what appeared to be a young family. She picked it up, and examined it.

"And who are these friendly looking humans? If you don't mind me asking of course, Mr...um. Oh heavens, did we ever catch your name?" She asked the young apartment owner. He glanced at her, noting the picture she had chosen to pick up and observe. His glasses shimmered in the sunlight that came in through the windows, so his emotions were hard to read. They were however picked up in his suddenly lower tone.

"Don't touch that." He scolded sternly. In slight shock from the man's reaction, Kanaya obliged.

"Oh...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you in any way. They just looked so happy and I-"

The man walked over and took the photograph from the table. Through his specs, you could see the tiniest hint of strained emotion. He stared at it for a while, then took it into another room. Kanaya looked stunned.

"Oh dear...I hope I haven't...struck a nerve." For whatever reason, she was beginning to pity the man, but said nothing more about it.

Vriska flopped her hand about carelessly.

"He's probably fine!" She said with a relaxed grin. She had a remote in her hand and was messing with it, completely unsure about what it was or anything. After messing with the buttons for a while, she ended up turning on the television, and everyone stared at it in awe.

"Woah man!" Gamzee said with wide eyes. "What kind of magic device IS that even? How'd it up and turn on that weird lookin box screen anyway? Miracles man. Pure sweet-"

"OH WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY! It's just a fucking screen changing device! They're easy as shit to operate. Here, I'll show you." Karkat took the remote from Vriska's hand and began to change the channels. "See? Easy as pie!"

"KK..." Said Sollux dryly. "You only know that becauthe I told you. Remember?"

"Oh stop hogging up the glory in this situation!" Karkat frowned.

"Well it ith true..."

Vantas mumbled more complaints under his breath, but was fortunately cut off by Dirk's return. The man had a tray of drinks in his hands now, and the picture was nowhere in sight.

"Sir I-" Kanaya started.

"Dirk." The Strider interrupted. "My name is Dirk Strider." He handed her a drink. "Here...water is good for you." He was obviously avoiding anything to do with that single photograph, and continued to distribute the beverages to each troll.

"Excuse me..." Equius asked from his seating on the floor in front of the couch. "But is there perhaps...a releasing chamber in this hive? There is something I must do. Any...soap perhaps?" The STRONG individual was having quite the time getting over the fact himself that he said such a swear as that only hours before. He felt it necessary to punish himself by sucking on some soap.

"Wait...do you need the shower or something? Cause we do have one of those." The blonde male replied while giving out the last glass of water.

"Yes well...I have done something...completely out of proportion to all that I believe. A proper punishment must..." He exhaled creepily. "...commence."

"Woah man. Woah. Don't do that here. You want some kind of weird erotic fantasy fulfilled, you're gonna have to do it elsewhere." Dirk replied with a straight expression on his face. (His usual expression on a daily basis.)

"Erotic? Whatever do you mean? I simply wish to wash my mouth out with soap. I apologize sir, but this conversation is getting quite...awkward. I am beginning to sweat profusely...I need a towel."

"Oh, well, in that case, the restroom is at the end of the hall." Blinked Dirk.

"Thank you...Mr. Strider."

"Just Dirk thanks. Oh yeah, a little word of advice, don't open the window in there. It's probably how those imps got in the last time..."

When the blue blood got up to get to the hallway, Dirk let out a deep sigh. There was a long moment of still silence, and finally, Karkat was getting impatient.

"So are you going to tell us about this woman that we're suppose to be hiding from or what?" He said after taking a cold sip of his beverage. Dirk exhaled.

"Here." The Strider replied. He took a few items out of his pocket and spread them out on the coffee table placed center of the room. They appeared to be different photo prints. The pictures he was analyzing from before on his computer actually. They showed the female silhouette, and the floating luminescence around her. You could tell simply by her shadow that she was well formed. The trolls observed with hard stares.

"Heeeeeeeey!" Vriska said with narrowed eyes. "I know who she is!"

"Really?" Asked Feferi. "Who?"

"It's the Condescension you dummy!" The spider girl lightly smacked Fef behind the head, then continued her sentence. "Your ancestor!"

"Figured you'd know about her." Said Dirk with his arms sternly crossed over his chest. "Now do you know why you're all in danger?"

Karkat began to grumble.

"Bah!" He exclaimed. "Those ancestor stories are just old trolls tails. You know. Not real. Like Tavros's junky frolicy shit."

"Hey!" Said Vriska annoyed. "This is nothing like Tavros's fairy foolishness! This is for sure a very real thing! Of course you wouldn't understand Karkat. You're just plain ignorant when it comes to our history."

Tavros was in the background with a sobby expression on his face, and tried to say something about their negativity towards him, but decided it was no use getting involved. Meanwhile Gamzee was chewing on the long horned boy's shirt, completely uncaring about whatever the crap the others were even talking about. Tav let out a sigh.

Feferi looked shock.

_"My...ancestor?"_ She thought deeply to herself while examining the pictures. _"She's here? But how? And for what reason?" _

"Hey wait a second!" Karkat sounded. "Dirk! How do you even fucking know about this woman anyway?"

"That's not any of your business right now kiddo. And frankly, I don't feel like getting into any of my personal life." He paused for a moment. "The point is, you guys need to try and stay in your human form for as much as possible. So don't revert back unless you know you're absolutely out of sight to ANYONE. Got it?"

"Yeah. Whatever. We've got it. Now can we discuss our living arrangements?" The Vantas asked, huffy as usual.

"Sure thing." Dirk replied. "I actually already contacted the others while I was in the kitchen. They'll be here to pick you guys up in about an hour. Good thing it's a weekend. Otherwise I might not have gotten everyone's reply today."

"Wowy meowy!" Nepeta cried cutely. "You sure do work fast Mr. Strider!"

A single eyebrow on Dirk's forehead raised.

"Wowy...meow? Really? You really just said wowy meowy. Ok. Wow. That was...that was wow."

"Oh yeah...I guess that was kind of a silly thing of me to say, huh? I'll try not to be as silly with my cat puns the next time I am surpurised about something like that! Hee hee!"

As if to break the awkward silence now being exchanged between the two of them, a great crash was heard off in the hallway. Dirk put up his finger.

"Give me a moment." He said swiftly before racing to the hall to see what happened. There, a giant hole was in one of the walls of the apartment building where a door was suppose to be. (The door to Dave's room actually), and for once in a while, Dirk's mouth was wide open in a near shock. Equius was leaning up against another wall in a tizzy, and the younger Strider brother was sitting up shirtless on his bed with a miraculously cool expression on his face.

"Whatever it was to cause that to happen, it wasn't me." He said with a hidden eye twitch behind crooked glasses.

"Woah. How did-...what? Fuck. Best hope you intend to pay for that." Dirk said with a similar eye twitch. Equius's expression seemed to be one of disturbed panic.

"M-My apologies human blood. I was searching for soap, and when I found the device, it slipped out of my hand, and I ended up tripping over it by mistake and into this wall. Please, punish me! I desire it! No troll should ever act this way in another's hive when so courteously invited. I-"

"Hey." Dirk replied. "Calm your nuts. You're just going to have stay here to get it paid for is all. Work for me. As some kind of butler or something like that."

"Awesome." Said Dave. "This means I don't have to do my chores anymore, right bro?" He asked his brother dryly. Even though he already knew the answer. Dirk rolled his eyes before saying anything.

"Nah. Just means mine are through. Good thing too. Stress at work can totally get to me sometimes."

"Bro. You work at an ice cream shop. And it's fall."

"Go to your room Dave."

"I'm already in my room bro."

"..." He paused. "I don't want to hear it Dave. Go to your room." This time for sure Dirk was dryly teasing.

"I'm already...oh fuck it. It's too early for this." Dave sighed. Then after that, he fell back into his bed and just casually lied there.

After they had momentarily covered the large hole in Dave's room with an extra mattress, Dirk worked with the trolls on how he was going to arrange things for their housing. They would all be separated in threes and names were drawn out of Dirk's hat. Except for Equius who had already been apparently appointed under the Strider household. The list went as follows:

**Strider Household**

**1. Equius (REQUIRED)**

**2. Terezi**

**3. Aradia**

**Harley Household**

**1. Feferi**

**2. Gamzee**

**3. Tavros**

**Egbert Household**

**1. Vriska**

**2. Nepeta**

**3. Karkat**

**Lalonde Household**

**1. Kanaya**

**2. Eridan**

**3. Sollux**

A few of them argued over the list, and some even called it blasphemous. But all in all everyone quieted down. It was either they deal with who they were matched up with, or they have no place to stay at all, putting them at risk. Obviously none of them wanted that, so the compliance was futile. Then finally after an hour of fiddling around and asking stupid questions, the host and hostesses finally arrived. They knocked on the door of the Strider apartment. Jade came in alone, whereas Rose came in with her mom, and John his grandmother. The reason for this was because Jade's house was easily within walking distance to the Egberts, so Grandmother Crocker offered that she take the girl back home herself. After all, they DARE not interrupt one of Grandpa Jake's many...odd adventurer moments, and as for current, he was having just that.

Of course the trolls at the Strider house stayed behind. They helped the others pack and what not, then bid their for now farewells. Now all the others needed to do was arrive. So they jammed themselves inside the vehicles, and were driven to their new destinations.

**AT THE LALONDES**

"So welcome to the house you guyyyys~" Mama Roxy smiled after parking, and getting her key out to unlock the door to the house. Or rather, mansion. It was GIGANTIC! Rose sighed as though it was nothing really that important, and followed her mother outside of the vehicle, letting the others hop out after her. Each of them looked at the place in awe.

"This hive belongs to YOU?" Kanaya gasped. "It's absolutely gorgeous!"

"Well, it isn't THAT magnificent. If I had it my way, this house would look much different." Rose replied with a sigh. She walked ahead of the three humanized Trolls and allowed them to follow her.

"Noww THIS is wwhat I call CLASS!" Said Eridan as they were entering into the first hallway. He admired the inner decorum, but at the same time, seemed rather befuddled at the consistent wizard theme. He figured he wouldn't question it for now.

"Tho wait..." Sollux said thoughtfully while gently flicking a miniature wizard figurine. "We're actually going to live here? Thith ith theriouth? No joke? Damn did we get lucky..."

"Follow me guys!" Roxy grinned while loudly chewing on a piece of gum. She blew a bubble and continued on her way through the kitchen and up to a staircase. "Your rooms are gonna be up here! Cause like, we have so many fuckin' guest rooms, that we don't really know what to do wiff dem. It'll be perfect!" The woman trotted up in her heals and beckoned the others to follow her. Rose attempted to stay behind, but failed when her mother yelled at her to be a good hostess.

When they got up to the top, the rooms were revealed. A lovely bathroom being one of the most important things, was decorated with purple wizard curtains, and a lovely wizard rug. Eridan was starting to think this was getting a little old.

"Do you all believe in magic or somethin? Wwhy is this place covvered wwith fuckin wwizards?" He finally asked Miss Lalonde.  
She gasped dramatically.

"You dun like wizads?" She asked with wide eyes. "Well you sure do look like you would, you lookin' like Harry Potter and all dat! Too bad. But if you hate it dat much, we can always put you in the undecorated bedroom! It's kinda more like a closet area, but I mean really, if you dun like em' then what can ya do? Did I mention its unda the staircase?"

"Under the...OH FUCK NO!" The fish lover exclaimed, completely appalled by her request. Of course, she wasn't really going to put him there, but it was the only way she could think of to keep him satisfied and in the proper rooming arrangement.

"God Eridan." Sollux said. "I don't really care what you dethide, but you should at leatht be grateful thome. We motht likely have the biggetht houthe in comparithon to all the otherth. Tho come on! You can be tho thpoiled thome timeth..."

"Wwell...it IS a big house. Ok Sol. I'll agree wwith you...for noww anywway...I do hate your guts after all, but in the end, I shall claim this as my castle!"

Kanaya sighed a sigh of relief when she realized she wasn't needed as an ausprit in this little endeavor after all.

"Okie dokie kiddos!" Miss Roxy smiled. She let out a sick hiccup and a chuckle as she had started to fill herself up with an alcoholic beverage as the two were briefly having their little dispute. She was getting quite tipsy. "Hey Rose?" She grinned sleepily at her daughter. "Cun you be a dear and continue this tour fer me? I love you sweetyyyy~" Ok. She was already more than a little bit tipsy.

"Ugh! Mother! You should not chug such drinks like that! It is not good for you! Sigh." Rose paused. "Go ahead and sleep it off. I'll show the others around..."

Once her mother was all sorted out and helped into her room, Rose did as she promised and showed the others where they would be sleeping. Kanaya was given a lovely room on the third floor. One with a garden window, and lovely drapes. It reminded her of home, and she got to unpacking right away. She of course didn't have much to unpack though, and was soon able to join the rest of the group with their tour. Then when she got back down again, Eridan was being shown his _own_ room. This one had a nice purple theme going. The bed was purple, the curtains were purple, the carpet was purple. It was great except for the fact that it was COVERED in wizard designs. Not too surprising in a house like this one. But well, he did promise to comply, so, he did. After all, the bed was well fit for a king! It even had a canopy! Excellent.

"This...is..." Eridan gasped.

"Appalling? Thtupid? Frighteningly awful?" Guessed Sollux.

"I wwasn't gonna say that Sol! I think I deservve a room like this one! I'll just ignore the magic crap involved and replace it wwith the wwoderous wworld of science!"

"Well, at least you like it." Rose shrugged.

"Of course he does Miss Rose!" Smiled Kanaya. "Honestly, who wouldn't impressed by this magnificent hive? It is absolutely gorgeous."

"Thank you very much Kanaya." In the car they had exchanged their names to each other for yet another round, just in case they were forgotten from previous introductions.

"Oh yes. You are very welcome. Rose dear, I can see us becoming very good friends. Would you reciprocate the offer?"

"I concur." Rose replied with an elegant nod. "After all, you seem to be the most agreeable out of all the other aliens. Therefore I am willing to erase any insults I put towards you in the past."

Kanaya jumped back agape, and quickly pressed her hands against Rose's mouth.

"SHHOOSH! You can't know that! Why would we be aliens? That's completely absurd! Ridiculous even! AHAHAHA!" The tall Maryam said in the ways of a panicking break down. The other two looked completely shocked.

"Mmf!" Rose tore Kanaya's hands from her mouth. "Please, allow me to explain! You are a horrible liar by the way..."

"Woah woah woah..." Said Sollux. "You already...I mean...you figured it out?"

"Yes! Now shoosh! If you wish to know how I figured it out, then there must be silence!" Rose cleared her throat. "Now then. My explanation. You see, me and my friends, those being the humans you met, all decided about a week ago to indulge ourselves into an experiment..."

She continued on with her reasoning. All the while using big words that not even I would understand even if I wrote them down myself. She mentioned the summoning program, and what happened on it. She also told them about how they had so suddenly appeared only a day after this experiment took place.

"It wasn't all that difficult to figure out you see..." She stated intelligently. "I'm sure that Dave knows as well. Not so sure about the others though, they can be quite slow on occasion."

"So you kneww about this the entire time?" Eridan asked with a lifted brow. He started to cough a little.

"Correct." Nodded Rose. "I only wish you didn't have to disguise yourselves like that. I'm very curious about your actual appearances."

"Thorry but, that'th gonna have to be a no go." Sollux explained. "Until we figure all thith shit out, we're going to have to keep our true formth a thecret..."

"Fine by me. I'm sure you have a perfectly educated reason. Now then, would you like me to continue our little tour?"

"Oh yes! Do show us more!" Kanaya nodded enthusiastically. She was very curious about the rest of the building.

"Right then." Replied the blonde girl. "...On our way."

She showed them many, many rooms, and even extended to the basement. It was all really quite lovely, but as they were continuing on through one of the hallways, Eridan's cough was starting to get worse. Sollux took notice as Kanaya was distracted with Rose up ahead.

"Jeeth EI, are you ok?" He asked with an almost concerned expression on his face. "You weren't eating rockth again were you?" He attempted to tease. Eridan waved his hand about to get the lisping Captor off his back.

"I'm fine Sol. Just go on!"

"Well ok then. If you _really_ want me to." Sollux simply shrugged it off and began to walk further ahead. But this was obviously not helping the royal blooded troll. His hacking became worse, and he fell to his hands and knees.

"What is going on back there?" Kanaya asked while partially turning to look behind her.

"Shit..." Sollux couldn't help but turn around to look as well. Ampora was not in a good state of health. Then finally, he ran up and knelt down by the highblood's side with a worried expression. "EI, when wath the latht time you were in water?" He asked with his hand on Eridan's shoulder. Ampora only continued to cough, his eyes were starting to water. Rose was still up ahead, but facing them now, unsure about what was going on or how to react.

"Rose!" Kanaya called out. "Do you have a tub of any kind? Eridan is in desperate need of liquid!"

"We have a pool out back!" Rose mentioned, knowing now that this situation was dire.

"Fuck! The watcheth aren't water proof though! It'th going to have to be thomewhere inthide." Mentioned the Captor.

"Don't worry. We have a bathtub too." Rose almost laughed at her own statement, but figured this was no place to do that right now. Then after Eridan was lifted up with his arm put around Sollux's shoulder, they were brought to a large bathroom. Rose was left out of the room, and Kanaya started the water, then with his clothes on, Maryam and Captor threw the writhing Ampora inside. (The watch was taken off first though of course.)

"Um...is everything ok in there?" Rose called out from the other side of the door. Sollux responded.

"Perfectly fine! No wait. I think he'th dead!" An incredible amount of splashing noise was heard from inside the bathroom. "Oh...NEVER MIND! HE'TH GOOD!"

"Honestly Eridan. Why must you make such a mess?" Kanaya's voice echoed as well. Then outside, Rose rolled her eyes and half smiled. She then sat herself down at the corner of the hall near the door to wait for them.

This whole excursion gave Rose an idea! Since Eridan was not exactly satisfied with his wizard room, (and she knew even though he tried so hard to hide it) she could let him have the bathroom instead! After all, they had plenty more where that came from. And if her mother questioned it, then well, whatever! He would just have to keep the door locked. Besides, her mother barely ever questioned anything to begin with! So it didn't really matter. And anyway, this tub was HUGE! Certainly the best idea for a weirdo like him! All was officially set and done, and the trolls would live happily in this gigantic house of wizardry and magic. Not Hogwarts, but simply, the Lalonde house.

**AT THE EGBERTS**

"Well, it isn't the biggest place ever..." John said as he plopped himself down on a large blue comfy chair. "...But you know, it's home. And I guess it's bigger than the Strider house. Course, I'm not bragging about it or anything. How do _you_ guys like it?"

Karkat stood in the front of the living room and looked around with an unimpressed expression on his face. He held suitcases of what he managed to save from the cave collapse on each side of him thanks to the help of Dirk Strider's apparent packing experience and tips.

"Well it's better than nothing!" He said with an angry curled lip. Vriska however, made herself more at home. She sat down on a near by couch, and flipped off her shoes with a grin.

"Oh yes!" She said while closing her eyes to relax them. "I could ceeeeeeeertainly get use to this!" She nuzzled her back into the chair. "I claim this room as mine! Nobody else's!"

"But Vriska..." John intervened. "...This is not a bedroom!"

"It isn't?"

"No. This room is suppose to belong to everyone. It's the family room! Besides, I think you might find yours to be a little bit more comfy in a bed. Those are upstairs."

Vriska scratched her chin and contemplated momentarily on whatever John could mean by this, "bed".

"All right. Fine. Show me the way."

"I was just about to do that." John said with a nod of approval. He then lead three trolls up the staircase, and into the main hall.  
There was harlequin shit, EVERYWHERE. Karkat was starting to find to be very...unsettling.

"Oh god..." The male troll said with a twitch. "How the fuck am I suppose to get to sleep knowing that these creepy assed HARLEQUINS are strung up everywhere watching me!?"

"I know." John said. "They suck, don't they? But I can't argue with my dad's interest, so...unfortunately you're going to have to deal with it." He shrugged it off much like it was nothing. "ANYWAY. Let me show you guys your actual rooms, ok? But uh, one of you is going to have to sleep in the basement. We only have one guest room after all."

"I vote Nepeta!" Karkat pointed to the kitten girl with a dry expression on his face. She was playing with a ball of yarn that she found randomly rolling around on the carpet, and when it startled her, she clung to the light bulb swinging above her. It burned her fingers, so in turn, she ended up flailing and landing on Karkat in the process and squeezing onto his head with frizzed up hair.

"MMM! MMFMMMM!" Vantas tried pulling her off, but just like a frightened kitten not wanting to take a bath, the girl would not let go. John simply sighed and turned around to the first bedroom door. The handle jiggled, and inside, was a big and bright room filled with office equipment and prankster crap. There was a bed in there though hidden somewhere in the corner. So it would definitely work as a bedroom. There was also however, a man sitting at the desk. Some guy with a hat on his head and a pipe in his mouth.

"SON!" The man said between his clenching teeth. This was just so that he could keep the pipe in his mouth.

"Yes father..." John side. "It is I...you're spawn."

"And these are your friends I assume?" He asked while scratching his chin.

"Yup." The Egbert son nodded. "This is Vriska next to me. The other one is Karkat, and the girl attacking him is Nepeta."

"MMFAMFMAMFMMM!"

"As you can see, they are all very pleased to meet you." John twitched.

"Ah! But the pleasure is all mine! I shall move my office elsewhere! Just as promised. Because I'm sure it will be difficult to sleep in a place so cluttered." John's dad immediately went to work, dragging his desk over to a near by window.

"Um...dad what are you-"

"G'BYE SON!" Despite his attempt at saying anything to stop his dad from doing anything stupid, John watched as his father threw the desk out the window and crashed out after it.

"HOLY SHIT DAD!" The boy ran to the broken window, avoiding any glass on the floor then peeked down. His dad was fine. The guy even had a parachute for heaven sakes! Like really! The boy face palmed.

"Wow. So your dad has a thing for self defenestration does he?" Vriska laughed. "I like him already." She crossed her arms in a teasing sort of way. John rolled his eyes.

"Nevermind that. Just...someone choose this room to sleep in or something. That cool?"

"Oh I like it already John!" Laughed the Serket. "Therefore it is now mine!"

"But wait. You're going to have to share it with Nepeta." Mentioned Egbert.

"Aw man...two rooms that's right. Ha! That means KARKAT gets the basement!" Vriska chortled.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!? I thought Nepeta was sleeping down there!" Shouted the Vantas in reaction.

"Sorry man. Me and my dad made an agreement, and I nearly forgot about it. Girls are with girls, and boys stay to themselves. I have my own room after all."

"Is the basement cold or anything fuckbert?"

"Only when the heater isn't working."

"It IS working now...right?" Karkat asked through grinding teeth.

"Um...ON WITH THE TOUR!" John replied...

They were shown the necessary areas of the house. Bathrooms, the no touch rooms, shit like that. And then...with the forceful self pushing of John, he managed to get them into the kitchen. IT was happening.

"COOKIES JOHN? WHAT ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS JOHN? DAMN BAKING IS JUST SPLENDID ISN'T IT JOHN?" His Grandmother was baking. A LOT. There were sugary products flying EVERYWHERE.

"EVERYONE HEAD FOR THE HILLS! GRAMMY ISN'T TAKING SHIT FROM NO ONE!" John yelled as he leaped over several counters. The others hid behind the entrance way.

"GAWW! But I like cooki-EEP" Nepeta was pulled away from the oven by the forceful grip of John's hand.

"We don't...bother her...while she's in the kitchen. That's like...rule number ONE. Ok guys?" The messy haired boy said with a notable twitch while they were hiding outside the room. Karkat was too stunned to reply, and Nepeta just kind of stared like a derp. Vriska, was panting, and nodded slowly.

"Glad we got that settled."

In the family room, John showed the others the television. It was a good size, and there were a few old school gaming systems next to it. Nothing really exciting though. He began once again to explain the room.

"Ok. Every other night, is movie night. There are no movies that can't be re-watched. I would watch movies EVERY night, but I've been told I need a break every now and again, thus explaining the occasional free days in between. The night time is usually when the kitchen is pretty much safe from Grandma's wrath, therefore, popcorn is on the house! If anyone around here can hold a movie night, it's me. You all are going to love it!"

There was about five minutes of silence after that.

"Fuck that shit." Said Karkat.

Next was the basement. So far it seemed like a pretty simple tour. Nothing TOO unusual, you know, besides John's CRAZY guardians. But I mean, what adult character isn't at least a LITTLE bit insane in this entire fanfic? That's right bitches. I just broke the fourth wall. I see you there blinking at me with those weird old eyes. Just. Watching. MOVING ON.

They went down the stairs carefully. It was one of those stair cases that you just don't trust. The kind made out of wood, and with ten inch gaps in between that a baby could fall through. Yeah. THOSE kind of stairs. The kind that John hated with a passion! But hey, a room was a room, and they had to do whatever it took to get there! Just like the motherfuckin chicken that crossed the road to get away from the KFC guy chasing him.

It wasn't too bad down there when they finally hit the bottom step. There was a smallish television, and it wasn't dusty or smelly like some basements. They had the laundry stuff down there, but that was ok. In the middle was a nice futon already set up for unfolding and sleeping in. Karkat scratched his chin.

"Not too bad fuck face. Not too bad..." He said while exploring the room. There was a cupboard next to the television that he had decided to open, and inside were a bunch of sappy romantic movies. With that, his face melted off into a reddish tint before closing it back up again. "Yup! This'll do! NOW GO ON UPSTAIRS! UP UP UP! YOU TWO FUCK BERT THIS IS MY ROOM NOW!" He commenced pushing the group upstairs so that he could get started on watching.

**AT THE HARLEYS**

"Ok guys." Said Jade as she was about to open the door to her house. "Grandpap is kind of crazy so don't be surprised if-" The door was half way open, and right inside was Grandpa Jake English in all out ARMOR, and a single spork. He appeared to be riding a stick pony.

"AVAST SAVAGE! I HAVE COME FOR MY PROPER EGG SALAD! INSTEAD OF THIS WITHERING POTATO PLANT! YAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" The old man started to RUN, no, SPRINT, towards a stuffed bull with multiple targets scattered all over it. Then in mid trip, the spork caught on the carpet, and somehow had enough strength to fling the man out the nearest doorway.

"Umn. GRANDPA ARE YOU OK?" Jade shouted from her standing point.

"OH HE'S A FIGHTER ALL RIGHT!" Her Grandfather called back.

"He's fine." She then said with a sigh. The three other trolls looked shocked.

"G-lub?" Feferi simply said with a twitch of the eye.

(Another Author's note: I am going to be stopping this chapter here. I know it's kind of short and cut off quickly, but do not worry peoples, it shall be made up for in due time! Anyway, here you go!)


	15. Episode 14: Weird things and Con Air

Author's Note: LOVE the ideas guys! Think I might just use em' all. Maybe. There's been a lot of people telling me to continue with Jade and her trolls, and others who found it unimportant. Therefore, let's twist things up. Heh heh. Continue your journey my friends!

* * *

EPISODE 14

WEIRD THINGS AND CON AIR

Within the depths of the lake just outside of Jade's house, Feferi couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned upon the rock that she had been calling her pillow, then lifted her head and looked above her to where the moon had shown through in the water's horizon. Grandfather Jake called her a magical creature, but one of evil intentions. She didn't exactly know why this was, but she didn't like it. Why would anyone assume such horrible things about her? She swam upward, and her lovely head peeked up half way out of the waters where her hair would flow subtly behind her as a wave of black. The royal blood rested her arms over the land once reached, and gazed out longingly at the distant nothing where there were a few trees, then the house she had been so kindly invited to stay. She relaxed her head upon her arms as though they were a pillow.

For a moment she thought she heard the laughter of children, and the slightest blur of a memory danced before her eyes. There was her and Eridan, only a few sweeps old, playing chase under two night glazed moons. Surely if they were to eclipse, the air would taste of misty watermelon. The girl licked her lips, then rose from the water to greet the young illusions, only to have them vanish. She let out a sigh, and held herself in the silvery moonlight.

"I need a drink of water..." She whispered to nothing in the chilling calm.

"Of course..." Was the reply of a female voice from the trees not too far beyond. "You shan't last long in a world such as this." Feferi felt the shadowy eyes peer at her, then a swampy yet elegant hand brush across her cheek.

"Jade?"

The figure flowed and twisted like black smoke in front of the girl, then turned to face her.

"Silly girl. I am no human." Its voice whispered in the darkness. "I am simply what could have been."

"What? Who are you? What is your name?"

"A name? You wish to hear a name? Heh heh...I laugh at the inquiry that I should tell you such a thing. The point is, in more ways than one..." It closed in on her face like smoke, eyes white like the hottest flame. "...I, am you."

"Impossible...I'm right here." Feferi stared. She couldn't keep track of the figure's windy movement. The silvery voice chuckled quietly.

"Aah, so naive my dear. So...contriving. A mix up. A fool."

"I am no fool..." The young girl replied shaking.

"On the contrary my dear. You shall never be accepted by Dualscar's apprentice. He has been learning so well. A toy really, for my every needy desire."

"What are you talking about?"

"Why, Eridan of course. Silly girl. In due time, the lady shall battle her prince." Her words faded, along with what sounded like the hissing of a cobra, and Feferi fell to her knees.

* * *

"Nyeh Ghost Busters..." John turned and spoke in his sleep. "Mm Nick Cage..." He continued and snored. "Mmm not a homosexual...neh...crackers...meh...meh..." His eyes just barely fluttered open as he felt a squeezing over his side, and he starred drunkenly in front of him. A pale blur of Karkat face came into focus, sleeping like a baby. "OH MY GOD FU-SHIT GAAAAH!" John flailed, and pushed Vantas off of his bed. "KARKAT! I AM NOT A HOMO!" The poor troll sat up and rubbed the back of his head after ramming it into the corner table next to him.

"FUCK YOU EGBERT! THAT HURT! Got a lump from that shit..."

"WHY AREN'T YOU IN YOUR OWN BED YOU FREAKY STALKER?" John flailed.

"It got cold down there ok? Fuck. Don't need to have a fit over it! That's MY job..." He continued to mutter foul things under his breath as he stood up. "Are we doing anything interesting today Fuckbert? No school, right?"

"Yeah. Cause it's Sunday..." Replied the bed head infested human. He scratched the back of his neck, still rather tired some as he looked around the room. All he was wearing were his boxers, and the blanket he was using coiled up around his legs and feet as though the night before he had been tossing and turning. He was trying to figure out what he dreamed about, but it was far too vague.

"Sunday hmn? And this Sunday is significant somehow?" Karkat asked with uncaring eyes.

"No. Not really. It's just like how we didn't have school yesterday either. Man. What time is it anyway?"

Karkat looked at the clock for him. "I don't know. A bunch of fucking numbers." He replied groggily. John leaned around to look at the clock on the corner table. It was noon. He pressed his hand to his head.

"Ugh...It's practically lunch time..." He groaned.

"You have scheduled meals?" Karkat asked with confused and upturned eyebrows. "How stupid is that..."

"Well, I could personally care less about what I eat right now. I'm making me an egg sandwich!"

"Sounds disgusting." Replied Vantas. He stuck his tongue out to emphasize his opinion.

"That's fine. You can make your OWN meal."

Egbert got up and out of bed with his Ghost Rider boxers fully exposed. This being the case, Karkat instantly blocked his eyes with his hand and backed up into a corner.

"GAH! FUCK EGBERT! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON! MY INNOCENT SEE HOLES CAN'T TAKE SUCH VULGAR VISUALIZATION!"

"Yeah well, that didn't stop you from getting your cuddle on with me, so what's it even matter anymore?" John said while putting on a shirt. He zipped up his pants then stretched. "No homo."

"Why do you keep saying that? What the fuck does homo even mean? Tell me! I demand it!"

"You know, 'homo'...gay?" The black haired boy tried to explain whilst combing out his hair.

"I...am still not following." Twitched the troll human. He adjusted his watch on his wrist some from it pressing into his skin while he was sleeping.

"Seriously?"

"Yes! Now further my education and fucking explain!"

"Sheesh! Alright alright. A homosexual, 'of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex'. So like, a guy who likes a guy in a romantic sort of way. Same goes for female on female. Ever hear of yaoi or yuri?"

Karkat blinked and tilted his head.

"Why the fuck would I?"

"Never mind that. The point is, that is the exact definition. Look it up on Webster, you find some pretty weird stuff on the internet. Not yaoi and yuri though, that just gets weird."

"Fuckbert?"

"Yeah?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about or even why it would be considered unnatural."

"So wait. You don't mind the whole homosexual thing?"

"Again, why would I? Does it seriously matter around here?"

"Well, I guess so..."

"That's stupid. Your stupid. All of your ideas on life are stupid. You have however peeked my interest on this yaoi and yuri subject. I may have to look it up later."

_**HOURS INTO THE FUTURE BUT NOT MANY  
**_

Karkat sat at his husktop agape.**  
**

_**BACK TO THE PRESENT  
**_

"Mnyaaaa!" Nepeta yawned and smacked her lips at the breakfast table then blinked twice. She had just gotten up from a brief cat nap. "So John-John, what are we gonna do today?"

"Don't make me reply as though I'm some kind of evil animated genius in the form of a mouse." (Don't get the reference and you are a very sad soul.) "I'm very tempted right now though." The boy replied. "Not much that I can think of actually besides kind of sit around. It's just one of those lazy days y'know?" He took another bite of his sandwich.

"Ewwwwwwww." Vriska held her nose and swiped her hand up and down in front of her face. "Boring is awful. Can't we do something else? I'm all about causing a little trouble here and there. What do you say we go out and about the town? Test our luck? Or rather mine, because I have all of it biotch!"

"Umn...I'm not so sure that we should..." Twitched John.

"Then I'll just do it myself!" The girl flipped her hair.

"Uh, yeeeeeeeeah, I'm not so sure about that eitherrrrrrrr...just sayin'."

"Here I go John! Ready to open the door! Cause crimes and murder civilians! Hand, slowly going towards the knoooooooob~"

"OK OK WE CAN DO SOMETHING! I just have to think on what around here would be entertaining to you guys. But I guess that doesn't take much considering you're all foreign."

Vriska gasped and put her hand on upper her chest in surprise.

"You racist!" She gasped with a hint of sarcasm. John face palmed.

"Oh oh! I know what we can do!" Nepeta waved her hand around cutely.

"Yeah?" Replied Egbert.

"Not that!" She smiled her little kitten smile and pointed to Karkat who was currently setting the stove ablaze. "Wait...OH MY GOSH KARKITTY NUUUUU!"

"SOMEONE PUT IT THE FUCK OUT!" The Vantas flailed.

"YOU IDIOT! WHY WERE YOU USING THE STOVE WITHOUT ANY PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE ON HOW TO COOK?"

"SHUT UP FUCKBERT! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TOLD ME TO MAKE MY OWN MEAL!"

"AND WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE YOU WERE TRYING TO MAKE?"

"HUMAN BACON!"

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUU-"

Fortunately during all that flailing a large bucket of water splashed over the panicking trolls (and human). The one holding this said bucket, was Grandma Jane.

"Hoo hoo hoo!" She chuckled at them all after the flame was put out. "I came in to tell you that you have company John, but then I noticed that you were having issues with heat!"

"Uh. Company?" The boy twitched. Jane nodded, then stepped to the side. It was Jade.

"Hi John!" She waved with a smile. Meanwhile the poor kid was still drenched as he adjusted his glasses. Karkat was in shock behind him from being saved by a bucket, while Nepeta had frizzed up from the water and was clinging to the top of the freezer. Vriska, however, was rolling around on the floor laughing her ass off. It was starting to make her hyperventilate.

"Y-y-y-you guys are so stupid!" She finally said between bursting guffaws.

"Here." Said Jade to John. She reached out her hand. "Let me help you up!" The boy had fallen from the watery impact of the bucket fluids.

"Thanks man...er...girl...er...sis?" He said as he was being pulled up.

"It's ok!" The girl giggled. "I know what you mean."

Once John was back on his feet, he asked Jade a question.

"So what brings you here anyway?"

"Something weird has been going on." Jade whispered. "Not that that's anything new at this point, but you know. I figured it would be a good idea to tell you."

"Weird huh?"

"Yeah! Isn't it exciting? And wanna know something else?"

"What?"

"Dave and Rose already know."

"About?"

"The aliens silly! We were both right!" She whispered loudly, and squeezed his hands in sheer enthusiasm.

"You mean _I_ was right Jade...remember, YOU were the one starting to doubt."

"But _I _was also the one who started this entire thing in the first place! Remember John? I had the computer program, and the philosophiiiiies and-"

"Ok, ok, I get it. We both deserve credit. Either way, yeah, that's pretty neat!"

"So you finally figured it out completely did you?" Grandma Jane smiled from behind John. This caused him to jump.

"WHA? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT GRAM?"

"Oh nothing! Hoo hoo hoo!" The old lady then proceeded into the kitchen to bake.

"Well, uh, that was...interesting." Said John. "BUT ANYWAY...what were you saying Jade? About the weirdness I mean."

"It has to do with the aliens. Turns out, they are really called trolls, and also, there are two sea dwelling trolls. Feferi is one of them, and the other is Eridan! I heard that part from Rose, but as for the rest..." She had a flashback on how she got this said information on the trolls and shivered.

**HOURS INTO** **THE PAST BUT NOT MANY**

A pleasant morning and Jade went to take her daily shower. Nothing to go wrong here! She opens the door. Lovely! Eyes closed humming a simple tune, towel in hand, everything completely fine. But oh, what's this? HOLY TACOS IT'S A SLIME MONSTER INFESTING THE BATHTUB! SHE SCREAMS. HE SCREAMS. SHE SCREAMS. HE SCREAMS! IT IS SIMPLY CHAOS. She slams the door shut and pants for her life, then realizes something. A few very notable things linger in her thoughts from what had just happened. Messy hair. Lanky body. Juggalo make up all over the fucking place! That monster was actually Gamzee bathing in a bath tub of some sort of yucky slime shit! Only, he was grey and had horns. And this odd looking penis...BUT WE DON'T HAVE TO GET INTO THAT RIGHT NOW. After that. Her life was scarred. Poor, poor, Jade human.

**AND AGAIN INTO THE PRESENT **

"Jade?" John waved his hand in front of Jade's spaced out expression, but she just continued to twitch. "Aaaaaaaand we lost her." Good thing the others were still too distracted with each other to really pay attention to him and the girl's conversation. All was well. Now if only Jade would wake up from her weird twitchy trance.

"PRRR WEEEE!" Nepeta leaped onto John's back and nearly scared the shit out of him. He jolted, and she just kept her arms around him while happily examining Jade and tilting her head. "What's wrong with the Jade?" She asked with the same adorable voice.

"She's just kind of having a moment. She'll snap out of it eventually though, don't worry." Egbert replied. Nepeta snatched the glasses off of Jade's face and put them on, causing her to drool with dilated eyes. The girl then fell backwards off of John's back and started to paw at the sky because of it.

"Hee hee hee hee! Evfurry thing is so fuzzy! Ha ha!" She giggled. Jade finally blinked.

"Wha! Woah! Wha? Gah! I can't see!" She grabbed at her eyes for her glasses that weren't there then searched around on the floor as though she was Velma from Scooby Doo. "Where are my glasses?" She heard Nepeta's giggling, and her ear twitched.

"Nyaahahahahaha! So fuzzy! I can't see anything with these on!"

"AHA!" Jade exclaimed. She then leaped on top of Nepeta like a puppy and grabbed around for the glasses. Nepeta squeaked once landed upon, then struggled free and up to her feet with the glasses still on! She ran away while holding them to her face and Jade chased after her until they both ran into a near by wall. It ended with them landing dizzy in a pile.

"Ugh! You guys this isn't funny! Jade, put your glasses on! And Nepeta, stop being such...such a cat!" John commanded with his hands impatiently placed onto his hips.

"Owyyyy!" Nepeta groaned as she rubbed her head in pain. Meanwhile Jade took the glasses off of the cat girl's face and sighed as she cleaned them and put them back on.

"Ah! Thank you John!" Jade smiled. She growled briefly at Nepeta before continuing on with her usual giddy personality. She honestly didn't know what came over her. "Umn, I think the main point of me coming over here was to say that, because of these recent discoveries, it should be necessary for us all to have a meet up. Dave told me this morning that it's really really important that we do! Especially after I told him what Feferi told me. She's been seeing things John. Weird things. It's kind of interesting really, and involves 'trollian history'!"

"Nya?" Said Nepete curiously as she was regaining herself. "Wait a minute! Y-you know about us? Oh dear!"

Jade sighed.

"Don't worry Nepeta..." She said calmly. "...despite my unexplained dog like behaviors just now, if anything, we are all going to help you guys out in the best way we can! Even if it means getting you back to your home planet! Where...DO you live anyway? Alternia, right?"

"Ummmm..." The cat girl was hesitant to answer, but then nodded.

"Wait..." Said Karkat who was now suddenly near the three others. He had walked over while they were in mid conversation. "...you guys...KNOW about us?"

"For the last time, YES! It's exciting isn't it? I can't believe you guys are actually..." Jade gasped and covered her mouth before continuing anything, then looked around so that Grandma Jane couldn't hear her as she whispered towards Karkat's face. "...aliens~"

"GUH! LET THE WORLD KNOW WHY DON'T YOU! I MEAN, IF YOU ARE GOING TO SPREAD THE WORD AND SHIT, IT'S EITHER THE HAPPY FARM FOR YOU GUYS OR ME AND THE OTHERS ARE IN DEEP FUCKING SHIT! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU FIND OUT?"

"C-calm down Karkat, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for this endeavor." Said John.

"Just get to the fucking chase!"

"Ok, ok. See, we miiiiiiiight have sort of kind of uh...summoned...you? Eh heh. N-not to mention, it was getting kind of obvious that you guys weren't from earth by the lack of knowledge that you had for our planet. I mean really, who DOESN'T know what SOCCER is?"

Karkat began to growl.

"GAAAAH! THIS IS AWFUL! SHIT SHIT SHIT! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I'M PACKING MY BAGS!" He finally shouted in a panicked rage.

"And go where exactly?" Said John. "Dude. We've known about you guys for a while, don't you think that if we had anything against you we would tell the government at this point or something? You are all safe! If anything this is just like E.T...only, without the whole glowing finger one word a day type encounter."

"I've never even fucking heard of that movie before Nookbert. If anything it's probably shit. Just like the rest of your stupid moving picture shows."

Jade bit her lip.

"Hmm, actually, I kind of thought that E.T was somewhat cute...in a weird wrinkly alien sort of way." She said while scratching the back of her head.

"D-gah-well...FUCK YOU!" Karkat crossed his arms, unable to argue with Jade because of how cute he thought she was at that moment in time. He was angry at himself for it. "Anyway. I don't care if you guys didn't tell a fly, I still don't trust any of you! I'm informing the others immediately." He grumbled and walked towards the empty living room and got out his communicating device. However right before he was about to dial, Nepeta tugged on his shirt and looked at him sadly.

"K-Karkitty. I like it here. It is so much better than living on the run...besides, the humans are really nice. Please can we stay? Pretty, pretty please?"

Karkat looked down at her and gritted his teeth, trying his hardest to reply with "fuck no", but he just didn't have it in him. What kind of a leader was he?

"GrrrrrAUGH! N-no way Nepeta! This is so stupid! I'm dialing the others!" With that response, Nepeta pouted.

"You're making a big mistake Karkat!" Vriska taunted, now on the comfy chair again. "This is some kind of vacation if anything! You just adore ruining the fun, don't you? You SUCK as our leader."

Hearing this, Karkat's eyes darkened, and he hung up his phone before throwing it on the floor angrily. Everyone was staring at him.

"Shut the fuck up Vriska." He said darkly before turning around, then climbing up the stairs. Then once he was gone, the spider girl raised an eyebrow.

"Damn! I didn't mean to make him THAT upset with me." She stated in confusion. Nepeta was watching up the staircase with watery eyes and didn't say anything at first, but then squeezed her fists.

"That was mean Vriska!" She said with her back facing the blue blood.

"Wh-what? I was trying to HELP you Nepeta! You're blowing things way out of proportion!"

Nepeta squeaked and looked down ignoring her, then tapered up the stairs after Vantas.

"What did I DO?" Vriska complained. Jade and John were both really quiet, shocked themselves by Karkat's actions.

"Uh...ok, I feel really awkward right now." Said Jade. "I'm just gonna wait outside noooow...TELL ME WHEN YOU WANNA WORK OUT THE MEET UP JOHN! MKAY BUH BYE!" She sneaked out the door and closed it behind her quickly, doing anything to avoid drama. John twitched, and Vriska crossed her arms.

"Damn it. Why am I always made out to be some kind of bitch?" She huffed in annoyance.

"Nah. You aren't a bitch Vriska." Said John as he sat himself down with his back against the lower arm of her comfy chair. He looked up at her. "Maybe something you said was just some sort of trigger for the guy. Y'know? People tend to take things too seriously."

"I didn't mean it like that." The girl sighed.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I know." There was a brief moment of silence before he started to speak again. He wanted to cheer her up, but honestly didn't know how to go about it, so he simply started a new conversation. "Hey...did you watch that movie I gave you?"

"Con Air?"

"Mmhmm."

"Yeah..."

"What did you think of it?"

Vriska glanced away and blushed.

"It was...ok..."

"Wanna see something cool?" John asked with a small smile.

"Um...I guess so."

"Ok, you wait right here and I'll be back!" He lifted himself from the floor and into the other room...

After several moments of pacing upstairs, Nepeta hesitantly knocked on Vantas's door.

"Go away...!" Was the muffled up reply.

"K-Karkitt-er...Karkat? It's N-"

"Nepeta. Yeah. I know. Go away."

"Please let me come in? I want to talk to you...I'm not mad or anything...a-and...I know that your feelings were hurt very much."

"Yeah. So what? That's all that happens any fucking way. I'm just being a sensitive fuck. Damn it...nobody takes me seriously!"

Nepeta gulped, and pressed her forehead against the door while looking down at the carpet below her. Her feet were rubbing over each other out of nervousness, but she finally spoke.

"I take you seriously...I know that sounds kind of funny, considering I'm always so happy and chipper around you, but it really is true. I-I...I just want to let you know that...um...you are a really great leader, no matter what anyone says." She wanted to say that she felt flushed for him, but she just didn't have it in her.

"Yeah right! If I was good at anything that I did, this whole mess would be fixed just like that! We would be HOME by now! We wouldn't of had to live in a fucking cave...or be attacked by stupid assed imps...everything would be just perfect. But it isn't now is it? Vriska was right. I don't want your pity Nepeta. Just. Just go the fuck away."

"You really really want me to go away Karkat? I understand. If you want some time alone, that's ok...I..." She hiccuped. "I'll go."

There was silence from the other side, so the girl turned around and began to walk away, that is until she heard the door open from behind her, and a heavy sigh.

"Wait a minute Nepeta..."

She turned to see that Karkat's eyes were red. It was as though he had been crying.

"Hm?" She looked up at him with sad eyes and blushed, then became slightly panicked to see that his face was like that. "Oh no Karkitty, you have been crying!" Her eyes widened, and she walked forward quickly, but he backed away and hid himself some behind the partially open door.

"Don't touch me. I just wanted to say...thanks for your pity anyway. I don't want it, but...thanks." He closed the door again. "Ok...you can go now..."

Nepeta was satisfied with this. At least he was acknowledging that she cared. Her lips turned into a small smile then, and she giggled some.

"You're welcome, Karkitty..."

By the time she had come back down the stairs again, she saw a very...uh..."entertaining" sight. John was wearing a long wig doing some sort of reenactment involving a bunny, and a box, meanwhile Vriska was watching with sparkly eyes and her hands clapped together as if she was in dream land. Nepeta twitched, then slowly walked away.


	16. Episode 15 (Preview)

Author's Note: Ok...after several people asking me, I'm going to finally continue this. It's been AGES hasn't it? Have a preview of next chapter

* * *

EARTHSTUCK

EPISODE 15 (Preview)

HERE COMES THE LIMIT

Days passed. Nights passed. Moons passed. It was starting to feel as though nothing was being accomplished by anyone. Yeah there would be imps, grist, teleporters and the like, but something didn't feel right. The atmosphere was changing, and even now everyone seemed to be growing up. The color in their eyes were brightening, blood thickening. Yup. Puberty was being a bitch.

"W-what is this!?" Eridan, who had just gotten up to brush his teeth, shouted as he saw that he had a zit on his chin in the mirror. "Oh god it is NASTY! SOMEONE GET THIS INFERNAL THING OFF A ME!"

"Oh god, calm the fuck down Eridan." Sollux looked over his shoulder. "It ith justht a zit."

"JUST A ZIT? JUST A ZIT? It is ruinin my entire face! Not that it's not already ruined by the fuckin human plushness of it all."

"Yeah. Congrats."

"CONGRATS? CONGRATS? THIS IS NOT SOMETHIN YOU CONGRATULATE SOMEONE OVER! I. HAVVE. A. ZIT!"

"Uh huh. Ith called growing up. Your skin is leaking oil."

"OH GOD EWW! YOU JUST MADE IT COMPLETELY WWORSE BY SAYIN THAT!"

"Heh heh."

"DON'T LAUGH AT ME SOL! I HATE YOU SO MUCH! Wwhy don't YOU havve a zit anywwhere?"

"Maybe I'm jutht naturally gorgeous."

"Heh! Yeah right! You wwere butt ugly since hatched and you knoww it!"

Kanaya barged into the bathroom and bumped Sollux's shoulder.

"Excuse me, lipstick to apply, coming through!" She said in a rush. Sollux and Eridan were WIDE eyed. As it turns out, Kanaya was stronger than she thought, for the two found themselves lip locked and completely stunned after that brief nudge to the shoulder. Maryam saw this through the mirror, and stopped mid lipstick application. She turned around slowly. "Oh my. I'll leave you two be then and head into the other...um...washroom, yeah." She ran out in a flash. They pulled away quickly and started to hack up a storm.

"OH GOD WWHY!?"

"YOU TATHTE LIKE FUCKING FISH STICKS!"

"IT BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURNS!"

Outside the bathroom, Rose and Kanaya gave each other a high five.

Later, and of course not too much later, Rose asked about Eridan's current relationship with "what's her face." (As quoted by the Lalonde.) While eating breakfast.

"Her name is Isabella! And wwe're doin just fine thanks. Textin evvery day."

"Yuck. Someone'th dethperate." Twitched Sollux. "Feferi really hates you now for that. I'm pretty thure she'th mething with me to make you jelouth or thome shit."

"You kiddin? Fef doesn't care what I do! She shouldn't anywway. It isn't her problem to deal wwith."

"Wow. You are really, really shallow. And wait a thec, you just got done thaying that you and preppy were doing fine. Now she's a problem? What giveth?"

"Ok wwell, there's more to it than that I guess...lately she's been really distant actually. It's almost as though her temper is runnin shorter than usual. Just the other day she wwas tryin to dis on Fef. I laughed along, probably somethin I shouldn't havve done."

"Uh. Yeah. Great job geniuth."

"Oh just let me continue!"

"Bitch."

"Shhhh! Anywway, it's not lookin to good in that aspect. She's also been kind a secretivve. Maybe it's just me lookin into it too much, I don't really knoww."

"You know, this is pretty hilarious when you think about it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Before thith, you were alone and I didn't think much of it, but you really were dethperate enough to get a bitch as a girlfriend. Come on. What'th more important to you? Fef, or thome alien chick you met at a cheap thchool? I've had it with this converthation. Good luck guy." With that, Sollux got up, and went to put his dishes away in the kitchen.

"He has a point you know." Kanaya said before taking a sip of tea. Eridan's face darkened.

"Wwell I say he can't think for me. I knoww wwhat I wwant and I'm stickin to it."

"Do what you want Eridan, nobody is stopping you, nobody but yourself." Kanaya went along with Sollux to put her dishes away as well.

"Gah! Wwah? So you're gonna leavve me too? Wwell, at least I havve you Rose."

Rose was silent.

"Rose?"

"Sorry, but as my mom would put it, you just got double sliced and served up cold. Consider yourself sushi."

"I hate you...SO much."

On a more interesting note, I may have focused in on the wrong house. That was in fact a very boring subject and could be MUCH better, but give me a break ok? ANYHOW. Back at Jade's house things were pretty much calm! Which was good considering past happenstances where Gamzee would do something stupid, but that was starting to feel rather normal now. This time whenever Jade would enter the main room, it was ok if the walls were dripping with some splotches of snotty looking whatever the fucks. It was also normal for that little shit head to...damn it, but this was the last straw. Gam's little IMP got into her room again and was tearing at her plushies.

"GAH! SHOO! SHOOOOO!" She managed to flop it over her foot and kick it out the doorway. "GAMZEE! CONTROL YOUR PET PLEASE?" There was silence after this, and the girl didn't pay much attention to it, but after a while it was kind of weird. Usually the clown would shout back something. Oh wait, he could have been spacing out again. "Gamzee?" She attempted to get his attention a second time, but still nothing. She stepped out the room and knocked on Tav's door. This was a guest room.

"Tav?" She opened it. He was sitting on the bed, all ready for school, back pack slung over his shoulders and everything as he scooted onto his wheel chair.

"Huh?"

"Sorry for sort of barging in on you, but do you maybe know where Gamzee is right now?"

"Oh yeah! He should be up in the attic practicing!"

"Practicing? For what?"

"Oh you know...the rap?"

"Rap?"

"Yeah. Him and Dave said that they would face each other in a rap off! It is going to be soooo spicy!"

Jade giggled at how Tav had described this, then nodded.

"Well ok then. School is going to be starting soon and we all need to get ready. How's Feferi doing?"

"Uh, good I believe! Better than before anyway. I think she's still getting over some stuff. You can check on her if you want to."

"Yeah. I think I might do that soon. Thanks Tav."

"You are very welcome!"

Jade exited the room, closing the door behind her and rushing upstairs to the attic to search for the Makara troll.

"Gaaamzee?" It was dark in the attic...so very dark. She couldn't see her own hands in front of her face. The walls creaked, and not a sound could be heard but that of her own exhaling breath.

"Um...are you there maybe? Shoot. Don't tell me he ran away...only another thing I would have to add to my list of worries." She stepped forward, trying to look for the light switch that dangled as a chain from the top of the ceiling. A cold chill ran up her spine, and a hard grip clasped over her shoulder.  
She screamed loudly, then was muffled.

"HOOOOOOOONK! Aw man!" The light turned on. Of COURSE it would be Gamzee! Only, he was in his troll form. "You scared the SHIT out of me sister!"

"I scared YOU?"

"Yeah man! You're loud as fuck!"

"Right then. Well. Um. School is going to be starting soon so you might wanna g-" She was cut off.

"Not goin to school today man. Got some shit to take care of."

"You mean that rap of yours?"

"Yup."

"Oh. Well. Hmm. I guess it's ok that you don't go. Nobody said anything about school being important to your species but...um...yeah. But don't think I'll be ok with it every day alright? Just don't go around town without your disguise ok? I don't want anyone coming up here thinking that we're hiding aliens."

"Sure man. Sure."

"I'll be on my way then..."

"Have motherfuckin fun!"

"Heh. I'll do my best!"

She headed downstairs, somewhat confused by Gamzee's actions but not really questioning it considering, well, he was Gamzee. Tavros was down there waiting eagerly for her along with Fef.

"Did you find him? Where is he?" The bull boy asked while scratching his brown hawk.

"I found him. He doesn't want to go to school today, so we're going to have to duke it out without him...not that that's hard or anything."

"Oh dear!" Feferi exclaimed. "Is he ok?"

"He's fine. I guess he's really been wanting to work on that rap of his."

"Uh, yeah." Tav agreed. "Probably."


End file.
